


West

by RovingOtter



Category: Joker (2019), Taxi Driver (1976)
Genre: Altered Mental States, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, BDSM, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Road Trips, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-29
Updated: 2020-07-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 01:13:45
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 25,851
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24446398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RovingOtter/pseuds/RovingOtter
Summary: Arthur and Travis leave Gotham and head west, hoping to start a new life together.  It's not happy ever after, but it's something.
Relationships: Travis Bickle/Arthur Fleck
Comments: 55
Kudos: 129





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the start of my sequel to People Like Us. I'm not sure yet how long it will be. Definitely not as long as PLU but I'll see how it goes. It will explore many of the same themes as the first story, so the same general warnings apply.

Next to a faded gray ribbon of highway, surrounded by snow-covered cornfields, sits a gas station with a tiny adjoining diner. The green neon sign on the diner’s window reads NIKO’S, OPEN 24 HOURS. Written on a sheet of cardboard beneath it: BREAKFAST ALL DAY AND NIGHT.

Snow falls softly and silently from the dark, starless sky. The bell over the door dings as two men enter.

One is older but seems somehow younger. He slouches in his rumpled brown jacket, longish hair unkempt and dusted with sparkles of snow, hands in his pockets, head down. His eyes are incongruously large and pretty—doe-like—in his haggard, deeply lined face. They dart up briefly before returning to his shoes.

The other man is wearing sunglasses, despite the late hour, and has military patches on his jacket. He moves with a slow, shark-like ease, head turning back and forth as though to scan the room for possible threats. His face is handsome in a neutral sort of way, a way that fades easily into a crowd.

“Two,” the second man says.

The hostess, a freckled young woman with purple-framed glasses, gestures toward the roomful of empty tables and booths. “You can sit anywhere.”

* * *

Arthur watches snow pile up on the windowsill next to their booth.

He is farther from home than he’s ever been in his life. Except Gotham isn’t really _home_ anymore. By now, the apartment he shared with Penny for decades has probably been rented out to someone else. There is no going back.

He feels untethered. A loose scrap of paper floating on the wind.

It’s exhilarating. It’s terrifying. He keeps feeling the urge to reach for Travis’s hand just to anchor himself, somehow. They are voyagers on a vast and dark sea, the taxi a boat tossed about by waves. He thinks about those old maps with drawings of sea monsters lurking outside the edges of the known world. _Here be serpents._

Tiny clumps of snow melt in his hair and drip down to the table. He rubs a finger over the droplets, spreading them, and draws a smiley face on the tabletop in water. On the radio, the Bee Gee’s “I Started a Joke” is playing.

_A clown and a taxi driver walk into a diner in Nebraska at midnight,_ Arthur thinks. It sounds like the start of a joke _._ But he doesn’t know the punchline.

“They have pot pie,” Travis says. “I might get some of that. You?”

“Probably some chicken noodle soup. Or…maybe I’ll just ask for some crackers. Those are usually free, anyway.” And they don’t have a lot of money. It will take some time for them to get set up in a new city, and for Travis to start working there. What little they have needs to last.

“You need energy for these long road trips,” Travis says. “Get something. If you don’t finish we can always take it to go.”

Arthur scans the plastic-sleeved menu, frowning. “What should I get?”

“Whatever catches your eye.”

Arthur always has trouble figuring out what he wants. He doesn’t often go to restaurants, and when he does, the number of choices always overwhelms him.

The hostess—also the only waitress on duty, it seems—approaches. She fills their coffee cups, then pulls a notepad out of her pocket. “What can I get you guys?”

“A burger, rare,” Travis says. “And apple pie with melted cheese.”

“I don’t think we have that. The second thing, I mean.”

“You got apple pie?”

“Yes.”

“You got American cheese?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Can you take a slice of cheese, put it on the pie, and microwave it until it’s melted?”

A pause. “I could try.”

“Thanks.”

She turns to Arthur. “What about you?”

“May I have the Dead Elvis?”

“Sure. Anything else?”

“That’s all.”

She retreats back to the kitchen.

“I gotta ask,” Travis says, “what’s the Dead Elvis?”

“It’s…” Arthur glances at the menu. “Three banana waffles with a scoop of peanut butter flavored ice cream on top, with chocolate syrup, caramel, whipped cream, nuts, and candied bacon.”

Travis raises his eyebrows, then cracks a smile. He laughs a little, shaking his head.

“What? You think it’s too much? It’s probably not too late to change it—”

“Nah, it’s fine. That’s what you want, right? And you need the calories. Just surprised me, is all.” He takes a swig of his coffee. “Don’t think I’ve ever had peanut butter ice cream.”

Arthur rubs his finger over the water smiley-face on the table, smearing it. “I remember having it once as a kid. At this little ice cream shop. It probably closed down years ago, but…my mom was in a good mood that day, and she said she would take me wherever I wanted. We sat on a bench outside and ate ice cream. We were laughing together about something. I don’t remember what.” His eyes lose focus. “There were times when she was so nice to me. I remember wishing that it could always be that way.”

Travis reaches across the table and lightly touches the back of his hand. His fingers linger there for a few seconds, stroking Arthur’s knuckles, then withdraw. 

Outside, the parking lot is covered in snow. The air is thick with it. A single streetlight glows through the white. It feels as though they’re on the moon, or in another world.

Arthur feels the panic building up in him. The overwhelming sense of freedom. He closes his eyes for a few seconds.

“California,” Travis says.

“Huh?”

“That’s where we should go. I hear they’re way ahead of things out there. In regards to people like us, I mean. Though…I’ve heard it’s expensive, too. Rent. I dunno. Probably depends on the city.”

“I do like the idea of living near the ocean.”

“You wrote about that in your journal. Wantin’ to play the ukulele on the beach. With a pretty Hawaiian girl.”

Warmth creeps up Arthur’s neck, into his ears. “Yeah.” Gotham was always so dim and gloomy. And he's never actually been to a beach. He always imagined the coast as bright and colorful, with big tropical flowers everywhere. Hawaii and California and other warm places sort of blur together in his head into a vague postcard-image of paradise. “I don’t know how to play the ukulele. But I’ve always wanted to learn. Maybe I’ll get one. I would like to play it by the ocean with you.”

“I’ll wear one of those, what do you call ‘em, hula skirts. And some of those flower-necklaces.”

Arthur giggles, muffling the sound with one hand. 

Travis’s voice lowers. “Or you could wear one. I kinda like the thought of you in a skirt.”

Arthur's blush grows hotter. He thinks about the black stockings tucked away in a corner of his suitcase. He hasn’t worn them since that first time. “You don’t think I would look silly?” He knows the answer, but he still has trouble believing, sometimes. 

Travis takes off his sunglasses and sets them on the table. “You would look gorgeous.” He reaches across the table again, touches the back of his wrist with a single finger. “You always do.”

Arthur’s breathing quickens. Just a little. "Do you think maybe...tonight...we could find a motel? I mean, if we have enough money."

For the few days they’ve been on the road, they’ve mostly been sleeping in the cab. Finding places to park where Travis can get a few hours’ rest, while Arthur keeps watch.

Arthur even took the wheel for a brief while, the other day. He said he wanted to try it, so Travis gave him an impromptu driving lesson in an empty parking lot, then napped in the front seat as Arthur drove. It went okay, but Arthur hopes not to make a habit of that. Even if it was a deserted country road bordered by open fields, he was constantly afraid he was going to crash. He crept along at twenty-five miles an hour (though the speed limit was fifty) as other cars zoomed past him in the left lane.

“A real bed _does_ sound nice,” Travis says. "Solid eight hours of sleep would do us both a world of good, I think."

And of course, there are certain things they can’t do in the cab. At least, not without the risk of being seen.

He misses sharing a bed with Travis. The press of skin against skin. Breathing in his scent. Feeling Travis’s fingers in his hair.

And, well…both of them could use a shower, too. Arthur's been wearing the same clothes for far too long.

The waitress brings their food. She places the stack of waffles in front of Arthur. A melting lump of beige ice-cream sits on top, swimming in a sea of chocolate goo and decorated with fluffy tufts of whipped cream and rainbow-colored candy sprinkles. It is an apocalypse of a sugar, an amorphous mass of browns and whites. Garish sprays of cherry sauce zigzag across the top, like blood streaked across a crime scene.

“Wow,” Arthur says.

“Yup,” the waitress says. “We’re kinda famous for it. I mean, ‘famous’ isn’t the right word, but. If you finish one of those in one sitting you get your name on the wall.” She gestures toward a wall with dozens of notecards tacked onto it. “I wouldn’t recommend trying, though. We had a guy throw up, once. It was pretty gross.” 

Arthur doubts he'll be able to finish even a third of this. Buying it was probably a dumb move. Travis told him to order something, but he couldn't decide, so he panicked and ordered the most indulgent thing on the menu. Oh well. He takes a small, delicate bite of the peanut butter ice cream and closes his eyes for a few seconds, letting it melt on his tongue. It's delicious.

She sets two plates in front of Travis. The cheeseburger glistens with grease. The apple pie is covered in a congealed, brownish-orange goo.

“I tried,” she says. “The cheese thing, I mean. I think I overcooked it though. I wasn’t sure how long to put it in for. I could bring you another one—”

“Nah, it’s fine.”

“It’s pretty burned.”

“That’ll make it taste French,” Travis says. “You know. They do stuff like pour whisky on their food and set it on fire. It’s very classy.”

“If you say so. Um—do you need anything else?”

“You know if there’s any motels around here?” Travis asks. “Just lookin’ for a place to crash for the night.”

“There’s one just like ten miles up the road, I think." She glances from Arthur to Travis, a hint of curiosity in her face. “Are you on a road trip?”

“Something like that.”

“Well, I hope wherever you’re going, it’s better than here. This place is a shithole.” After a half-beat, she adds, “Sorry. I’m not supposed to swear in front of customers, but—”

“No problem.”

She disappears into the kitchen again. They eat in comfortable silence for a few minutes, watching the snow fall outside. 

Arthur’s gaze strays to Travis’s left hand, resting on the table. And he wishes—not for the first time—that they could hold hands in public without fear. That they could kiss each other, indulge in those small, casual intimacies, without worrying about who might be watching.

Well, what’s stopping them? The only person here, aside from whoever’s in the kitchen, is their waitress. And she’s not even in the room.

Arthur bites his lower lip. He reaches across the table and lays a hand over Travis’s. Travis gives it a squeeze.

“This is nice,” Arthur says softly. “Just…being with you. I’ve never done anything like this before.”

“Me neither.” Travis’s thumb traces a small circle in his palm.

“Later, can we park and watch the sunrise together? I liked doing that, the other day.”

His voice softens. “Yeah. I liked it too.”

They look at each other. Arthur wonders if he’ll ever get used to the way Travis looks at him—as though he’s someone precious. Irreplaceable. Worthy of love and protection. He wonders if he’ll ever feel that way about himself.

On impulse, Arthur pulls Travis’s hand to his lips and kisses the knuckles. He rubs his cheek against the back of his hand, like a cat.

The bell over the door dings, and Arthur’s shoulders tense. Three men enter the diner, wearing snow-dusted jackets. The one in front—a pale, wiry guy with short, greasy blond hair and a pointed chin—glances at Arthur and Travis.

Arthur quickly withdraws his hand, but he’s too late. The man’s eyes narrow. There's a flash of cold contempt across his face. His upper lip curls slightly.

Arthur bows his head, heart pounding. His stomach twists. 

The men walk slowly past them and take a seat in a booth on the opposite side of the room.

Arthur’s soft, shuddering breaths echo through the stillness. In his lap, his hands bunch into tight fists.

_It doesn’t matter what they think._ But, of course, it’s not just a matter of being judged. There’s something about men in groups of three that always seems to spell trouble. Arthur’s mind leaps to every time he’s ever been bullied or beaten, the memories flickering rapid-fire behind his eyes, like someone shuffling a deck of cards.

“Arthur.”

His gaze jerks back toward Travis.

“No one’s gonna hurt you,” he says, his voice low and soft. Too low for them to overhear.

Arthur gulps and nods. The knot in his stomach loosens. That's right, he thinks. He's not alone anymore.

Still. His gaze keeps drifting to the men in the booth. They don’t seem to be paying any attention to him anymore. They’re talking among themselves in low voices. But his heart won’t stop pounding.

He hates that the smallest mean look can affect him like this. He hates that other people can so easily and casually jab through his flimsy mental barriers, into his soul, without even saying a word. He doesn’t want to care. He _shouldn’t_ care. He tells himself that he’s fine. He’s going to sit here and finish his meal like a normal person. He’s not going to hurry through it so that he and Travis can leave faster. He'll give himself indigestion if he eats too quickly.

He takes another bite of his waffle, which has already soaked through with melted ice cream and sauce. The first few bites were tasty, but already, the overpowering sweetness is starting to nauseate him. His throat constricts, resisting as he swallows.

“Maybe we should ask the waitress for the check,” Travis says. “Take the rest to go.”

“I’m fine.”

He wonders if Travis could actually fight off three men at once, if it came down to that. He fought off those teenagers who attacked Arthur and stole his sign, but those were just kids. And Arthur has no delusions about how useful he himself would be in a fight.

The largest man—a burly, bearded guy with a tattoo that looks like a playing card on his neck—raises a hand. Metal glints between his fingers. Brass knuckles?

No. A quarter. He plays with it, walking it across his knuckles, then makes it vanish between them. Makes it reappear in the other hand. It’s a magic trick; a simple one. Arthur learned a few similar coin tricks for kids’ birthday parties.

A warm rush of guilt floods his chest. And suddenly, he feels silly. Shouldn’t he, of all people, know better than to judge others based on so little information?

Arthur’s spent his entire life being judged by others. He always wished they would give him a chance. Maybe he should take his own advice and try to give other people the benefit of the doubt.

As he eats, he becomes conscious of a pressure in his bladder.

“I’ll be right back.” He stands.

“You want me to come with you?”

Arthur hesitates, then shakes his head. “I’m fine.” He's not a child. He made up his mind not to let fear control his actions. But a faint shadow of doubt remains.

He walks past the men in the booth, toward the bathroom door. His heart is beating a little too quickly. He hesitates. His gaze falls on a serrated steak knife on a nearby table. He wets his lips.

It would be paranoid to take a knife with him, wouldn’t it? Crazy, even.

Slowly, he curls his fingers around the handle, and—when no one is looking—slips the blade beneath his jacket. He tucks the hilt into the waist of his jeans before heading into the bathroom.

Just a precaution, he thinks. It won’t hurt anything to have it.

* * *

In the bathroom, someone’s drawn a huge, drooping dick on the wall in marker. There are a few FUCK YOUs scattered around. The sink is stained with rust, and the floor is suspiciously sticky, as though someone spilled a milkshake on it and no one ever cleaned it up. The tiles cling to the bottom of his shoes, and there’s a faintly gummy sound each time he pries one free to take a step.

Arthur’s accustomed to filth. There was plenty in Gotham. In a way, it’s reassuring; it feels like home.

He unzips his jeans. As he’s standing at the urinal, the door creaks open behind him. In the mirror, he sees the man with the greasy blond hair enter.

Arthur’s breathing quickens. 

_Relax. He’s just using the bathroom. Same as you._

The man stands behind him. Uncomfortably close. Arthur isn’t finished, but the stream of urine abruptly cuts off as the muscles around his bladder constrict. Quickly, he zips up. He glances at the dingy, cracked mirror and sees the man’s face reflected there, behind his.

The blond man gives him a smile. There's something silver on his teeth. Bits of metal glint in the fluorescent lights. “He’s a looker.”

“Who?” Arthur asks quietly.

“Your boyfriend.” He hovers there, close enough that Arthur can smell the coffee on his breath.

A laugh bubbles up in his throat. He swallows it. “H-he’s not…”

“No need to be shy.”

Arthur’s frozen, feet rooted to the spot. Fight or flight reflex is supposed to be a basic instinct, isn’t it? But whenever Arthur is scared, his body goes numb. Paralyzed. Maybe his self-protective instinct is broken. Maybe it was beaten out of him.

“You’re not so bad yourself,” the man says in a low, strange tone. “A little old, maybe. But now that I get up close—yeah. I see it. I see why he likes you.”

Arthur's brows knit. Is he…flirting?

No. The cold look hasn’t left his eyes. This is something else.

_Move,_ he tells his body. _Move, damn it._

“What?” the man says. “You’re too good to talk to me?”

Arthur’s hand slowly slides into his jacket, toward the right side of his waist, where the knife’s hilt is tucked into the hem of his pants. “I’m going to go now,” he says. He hates how small and wobbly his own voice sounds. Like a little boy’s.

“Didn’t your mama ever tell you it’s rude to ignore people?”

That’s not a normal way to talk to a stranger you just met in the bathroom, Arthur thinks. None of this is normal. He's not being rude by leaving. _Just walk out._ And still, his legs won’t move.

Arthur turns his head and meets the man’s gaze. His eyes are a very pale blue, almost transparent, the whites faintly yellow. Arthur wets his lips with the tip of his tongue. His heart beats faster, faster, the blood pounding against the thin wall of the artery in his throat. A smile stretches his lips, like invisible fingers pulling up the corners. He can feel the terror bleeding around the edges, transforming it into a pained grimace. Laughter presses against the back of his throat, a trapped thing, then finally bursts out of him. An animal leaping from his mouth. _“Ha-ha-ha-ha-haa!”_

The man jerks back. His expression hardens. “Something funny?”

Arthur shakes his head, still laughing. “N-no. I h-have— _ha-ha-ha-haa!_ ” The fluorescent lights flicker, disorienting him. He tries to push past, to the door.

The man grabs his shoulder, fingers digging in with bruising force, and yanks him back. He's not large or particularly muscular, but there's a startling, brutal strength in his movements. Arthur’s stomach lurches. Under his jacket, his hand curls around the steak knife. His breaths come in short, sharp pants. 

The man's fingers bite into him like claws. Arthur's shoulder throbs in his grip. “ _What?_ You have what?" _  
_

Arthur whines and chokes out another laugh. He opens his mouth to shout for Travis, but all that comes out is more laughter. He clutches the knife-handle tighter. The world dims, the edges blurring. He’s spiraling down into himself.

_Do it. Do it now. Stick it in him._

In his head, he sees himself shoving the point of the knife into the man’s eye, feeling it burst wetly open like a squashed grape. Pushing deeper, into the brain. He could do it. Just one quick jab.

_No._

He and Travis are the only people in this diner, aside from the three men. If he kills this man, the waitress will know it was one of them. She’ll call the police. She’ll be able to give detailed descriptions of them. Maybe even a description of the cab.

_“Ha-ha…ha-ha-ha!”_

The man’s lip curls. “I’ll give you something to laugh about.”

Oh god, he thinks. No. Please no.

The door slams open. 

“Get your filthy hand off him,” Travis says. His voice is calm. Flat. But his eyes are dark and cold with rage.

The man’s face goes blank. He and Travis stare at each other. Sizing each other up. For a few seconds, the very air seems to hold its breath. Arthur has the sense that there’s some invisible struggle going on between them. As though their wills are pushing against each other like a pair of antlers, warring for dominance.

The man lifts his hand off Arthur’s shoulder. "We had a little misunderstanding," he says.

"Have another 'misunderstanding' and I'll break your fuckin' wrist," Travis says.

Arthur is breathing rapidly. Shaking. He stumbles away from the man, toward Travis. Travis takes him by the arm, and they walk out of the bathroom, into the restaurant lobby. The other two men are still sitting in the booth, watching. The one with the playing card tattooed on his neck is still doing magic tricks, walking the quarter across his knuckles, making it move invisibly from one hand to the other. The waitress is nowhere to be seen.

“Just walk out," Travis says.

They hurry across the lobby, through the door. They cross the snow-covered parking lot and get into the cab. Travis pulls out of the lot with a screech of tires. They blast down the highway, the wipers swishing back and forth, cutting through the accumulated snow on the windshield.

“Keep an eye on the road behind us,” Travis says. “Make sure we’re not being followed.”

Arthur peers into the rearview mirror. He can’t see any headlights behind them.

Despite the cold, he’s sweating. He reaches into his jacket and clutches the handle of the steak knife. _You’re safe now,_ he tells himself. But his body doesn’t believe it. His fingers remain tightly wrapped around the knife’s hilt.

“You hurt?” Travis asks quietly.

“No.” Arthur rubs his sore shoulder. It probably will bruise. He's always bruised easy.

A muscle in Travis’s jaw twitches. His hands tighten on the steering wheel. “Shoulda gone in sooner. Had a bad feeling about that greasy little bastard from the moment I saw him. Wish I'd knocked his teeth out.”

“I’m just glad you came in when you did.”

Silence falls over them, broken only by the swish-swish of the wipers.

“We were minding our own business,” Arthur says, his voice cracking. “Why couldn’t he just leave us alone?”

“Some guys don’t need a reason to start shit.”

Arthur pulls the steak knife out of his jacket and stares at it. He turns it, glimpses his own eye reflected in the metal’s surface.

Would he have used it, if Travis hadn’t showed up?

There’s a whisper in his head: _Might have been fun. He would have squealed like a stuck pig._

A visceral memory flashes through his head—the sharp tip of a pencil sinking into soft, yielding flesh.

Arthur shoves the thoughts away. He rolls down the window and flings the knife out. It lands by the side of the road and disappears behind them. He presses a hand to his stomach. His vision slides out of focus.

“Arthur,” Travis says. _“Arthur.”_

He blinks a few times. He realizes that Travis has been saying his name for a while, now. “Sorry,” he mutters.

“You okay?”

“I feel a little sick.”

“Maybe I should pull over.”

Arthur shakes his head. “Don’t stop.” He doesn’t think the men will try to follow them. But he doesn’t intend to take any chances. Better to put as much distance between themselves and the diner as possible.

The motel—the one the waitress mentioned—is up ahead. But they keep driving. They drive and drive, through an empty, white landscape. Arthur glances into the rearview mirror, and his stomach tightens. “There’s someone behind us.”

“Keep an eye on them.”

The points of light behind them grow larger, larger.

“What kinda vehicle?” Travis asks. “Can you see?”

Arthur can dimly make out the shape. “It’s a semi.”

“Not them, then. They were in a blue pickup truck.”

Still, Arthur keeps his guard up. His gaze remains fixed on the rearview mirror. The headlights grow. The semi bears down on them, then roars past and disappears into the snow-thick night. Arthur lets out a soft breath, sinking into his seat.

“I think we’re okay,” Travis says. “But I’ll take some of the backroads just in case.”

They turn off the highway, onto a meandering country road. The tires bump and scrape over gravel and rocks.

There aren’t many streetlights, out here. The snow keeps coming down, reducing visibility even further. The world has shrunk to the road in front of them, the space illuminated by the cab’s headlights. 

“What if we get lost?” Arthur asks.

“We won’t. I got a good sense of direction.”

Arthur’s been clenching his stomach for so long, the muscles are starting to ache. He shuts his eyes and presses the heels of his hands against the lids. A laugh rips itself from his mouth, and he clutches his throat. His eyes water. “God.” Arthur touches his forehead. “Nothing even happened. Not really. But I can’t stop shaking.”

Travis pulls over to the side of the road.

“We—we should keep driving—”

Travis leans over and wraps his arms around Arthur, pulling him close. He rests one hand on his head. “I got you,” he murmurs into his ear. His other hand rubs up and down Arthur’s back, over the ridge of his spine. “It’s okay.” 

Arthur closes his eyes and hugs him back. He tries to hold onto control, but after a moment, he dissolves into laugh-crying.

Travis holds him tighter. One hand slides up into his hair. “It’s over. We’re safe.” He rubs Arthur’s scalp in small circles until the bout of laughter trails off into hiccups. “Assholes like that—they’re all talk. They just wanna act like big shots. They can only feel strong by making someone else feel smaller.”

But it was more than that, Arthur thinks. The way those pale eyes stared at him…

Men like that always find him. As though he’s marked. What happened to him when he was a kid, the scars it left…it’s as though people can see the damage. Smell it, maybe. It draws them the way the smell of blood draws predators. 

He tries to push away the thoughts. To focus on the pressure of Travis’s arms around him. 

“I’ll always protect you,” Travis says. “No matter what.”

Arthur’s mind flashes to the sight of Travis wounded and bleeding after being shot in the shoulder. After robbing a pharmacy. For him. 

They got lucky, Arthur thinks. They won’t get lucky every time. He pulls away.

“Hey,” Travis says.

Arthur turns his face toward the window. His chest aches. He rubs his arms, thinking about the man’s fingers digging into his shoulder. His face, looming in.

_People see you as easy prey. They see you freeze up, they see that blankness come over your face, and they think you’re a helpless doll they can do what they want with. It’s fun catching them by surprise, isn’t it? You surprised a few people, back in Arkham._

He remembers—foggily, but still.

“Arthur…”

Arthur hunches over, curling in on himself. “I was a few seconds away from sticking a knife into his eye.”

A brief pause. “You think I’d blame you for protecting yourself?”

“We’re trying to have a normal life together. Remember?" He smiles without mirth. "Killing someone isn’t the best way to start.”

“Guess not.”

They lapse into silence. The wipers swish.

“We should keep driving,” Arthur murmurs.

Travis shifts the cab into drive and pulls back into the road. 

A sign looms out of the darkness. Another motel, five miles ahead.

“Let’s stop there,” Travis says.

“Okay.”

Arthur wonders, not for the first time, if he's really capable of that. Of killing someone, even in self-defense.

There’s a switch in his head that flips if he’s pushed far enough. There’s no in-between for him. Over the years, his mind learned how to adapt to the pain, the fear. How to shut down all his inhibitions and allow his body to move freely so he could protect himself. But once he flips that switch…

He hasn’t gone under since they left their old apartment. But now he feels Joker close to the surface, bubbling and rippling there. Like an itch begging to be scratched. Not surprising, maybe. He neglected that side of himself for many years, forcing it down, keeping it small and contained in a tiny corner of his mind.

Now Joker’s had a taste of freedom. Of recognition. And he wants more.


	2. Chapter 2

They check into a dingy motel with a flickering vacancy sign. Their room is stark and simple. Not even a factory painting on the wall. Just a single bed with a TV.

Travis locks the door. Arthur sits on the edge of the bed, jiggling one knee. He fidgets, seething with jittery, caged energy. He keeps glancing at the window, at the nearly empty parking lot covered in snow. His eyes are unfocused. Haunted.

Travis wonders what that asshole in the diner said to him. He didn’t catch much of the conversation.

Slowly, he approaches and sits down next to Arthur. “You wanna talk about it?”

“It’s over. No one got hurt. Everything is fine. Right? There’s nothing to talk about.”

Travis hesitates, then reaches over and rests a hand on his back. Arthur twitches a little. He’s a ball of nerves. But there’s something more than fear, in his eyes. A restless darkness bubbling there.

Travis rubs up and down, feels the tension in his muscles. “Up to you. If you want, we can just watch some TV. Try to relax.”

“Maybe.” He doesn’t move, though.

“Arthur?”

“It doesn’t seem fair to you,” he says. “Having to always be the one to protect me. If that man hadn’t backed down—”

“He did, though.”

Arthur grips his knees. “I don’t want you to get hurt.”

Travis knows that just saying _don’t worry_ doesn’t help anything. He can’t promise Arthur that he’ll never get hurt. He’s human, after all. And the world is filled with threats. But he can’t promise that he’ll stop trying to protect him, either.

Travis is a soldier. He doesn’t know how to be anything else. Even now, years later, that training is still there. He doesn’t feel any particular pride in it. Beneath all the stuff about honor and duty and country, he’s a dog trained to bite on command. And now he can’t seem to stop biting. Maybe that urge was there even before his training sharpened and honed it. Maybe this is just him.

But he would rather fight for love than duty, if he’s got any choice in the matter.

“I was always taught that a man has to be prepared to fight for what he believes in,” he says. “For the people he loves. Even if it means dying. That’s what it _means_ to be a man.”

“I’m a man too, you know,” Arthur says. He lets out a short, cracked laugh. “God knows I’m not much of one. But still. So what does it say about me that I always need to be rescued?”

“I don’t mean it that way. You know I don’t.”

“I know. But it’s the truth. In a fight, I’d just get in the way. Either that, or…” He swallows. His hands are folded tightly together in his lap.

Travis doesn’t know what to say.

“Please understand,” Arthur whispers. “It’s not that I’m not grateful. You’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me, Travis. I feel safe when I’m with you. And I _need_ that feeling. More than I can say. No one ever protected me, before you. I just wish, sometimes, that I could protect you too.”

“Well, if you had a gun…”

“I don’t trust myself with a gun.”

“What are you afraid of?”

His lips tremble slightly. He rubs his fingers across them. “Losing myself.”

Joker, Travis thinks. He’s talking about Joker. About going under and not being able to come back. “You’ve come back before. Plenty of times.”

But killing is different, of course. They’ve talked about this before. Arthur is afraid that if he’s pushed far enough, he’ll kill, and he won’t be able to come back from it.

He’s not giving himself enough credit, Travis thinks. Still. Arthur knows his own mind better than anyone. If he says he doesn’t trust himself with a weapon, Travis won’t push the issue. But Arthur clearly feels guilty about not being able to defend himself, as well.

There has to be a solution.

“Travis?”

“Thinking.” He stares straight ahead. Motionless.

Next to him, Arthur squirms and scratches at his arm. So much contained energy, wriggling around beneath the surface like centipedes under his skin. He’s spent his whole life trying to hold it in. Trying not to laugh or fidget or lash out. If he could control that energy…

“You ever been in a fight, Arthur? Like a fistfight.”

He blinks. “No.”

“Not even as a kid?”

He shakes his head. “I got beat up a lot. But I never hit back. That just made it worse.”

“You want to learn? I could show you a few moves. Nothin’ fancy. Just how to throw a punch. That sorta thing. I mean—if you wanna be able to protect yourself but you aren’t gonna carry a gun, it only makes sense.”

“I never—” he breaks off, frowning. “You really think I can?”

Travis shrugs. “You taught me how to dance. I never thought I could learn that. If I can dance, you can punch.”

“I…guess I could try.”

Travis rises to his feet. “Stand up.”

Arthur stands, facing him.

“All right," Travis says. "Hit me.”

“What…now?”

“Sure. Go on. Take a swing at me.”

He hesitates.

“You won’t hurt me. Just give it a try.”

Arthur rocks back and forth on his heels. He squares his shoulders, curls his hand into a fist, and swings softly. It’s the gentlest attempt at a punch he’s ever seen. It thumps lightly into Travis’s chest. Like getting hit by a pillow.

This might take a while.

Travis grips Arthur’s wrist and examines his fist. “Keep your thumb like this. On the outside, below your knuckles.” He tucks it into position. “My dad taught me that when I was a kid. Your instinct says to tuck it inside, but if you do, you’re gonna break it if you hit something hard enough. And you wanna keep your wrist straight.” He holds it firmly for a moment, then releases him. “Try again. Harder, this time.”

Arthur throws another punch. Travis catches his fist before it connects. “Bring your shoulders down.” He places his hands on Arthur’s shoulders, pressing lightly. “And stand a little more to the side. You’re a smaller target, that way. Don’t face the other guy head on.”

Arthur shifts his body. “Like this?”

“Feet a little further apart…there.” Travis slides his hands down, gives his upper arms a squeeze, and releases him. “Now, again.”

This time, the punch lands on Travis’s shoulder. A light tap.

“You can hit harder than that. Again.”

_Thump._

“You’re still holding back. I told you, don’t worry about hurting me.”

“I’m hitting you as hard as I can. Really.” He exhales a short, frustrated gust of breath. “I feel like such a sissy.”

“Hey.” Travis cups Arthur’s chin in his palm, lifting it. His voice softens. “None of that.”

Arthur’s face warms a little. “Okay.”

“Wanna keep going?”

“Yes. Please.”

Travis releases his face. “Do it again. Don’t just move your arm. Throw your whole body into it.”

Arthur takes a breath, balls one hand into a fist, keeping his thumb on the outside. He draws his arm back. Then he thrusts it out as hard as he can, into Travis’s shoulder.

This time, he feels it, though he absorbs the blow without flinching. He nods. “Better.”

Arthur shakes his hand. “Are you made of rock?”

A smile tugs at one corner of his mouth. “If you wanna start building up some muscle I can show you a few routines, too.”

“I’ve seen the weights you lift. Pretty sure my arms would snap off if I tried to pick those up.”

“Well, you start with smaller ones. But you don’t need muscle to throw a punch and make it hurt. I was a scrawny kid. Some of the guys who picked fights with me at school, they were twice my size, but I still sent ‘em runnin’.”

“How?”

“By being faster. And more ruthless.” He places his hands on Arthur’s thin shoulders, adjusting his stance again. “Once you hit someone, don’t just stop. Throw another right away. Across. Like this.” He demonstrates, hitting the air. “The old one-two.”

Arthur throws one punch, then another, and Travis catches Arthur’s fists with his own palms— _smack, smack._

Arthur’s a little winded, now, his face flushed. He jabs again, and Travis steps back, avoiding the blow. But just barely. “Good. Now I’m gonna take a swing at you, and you try to dodge.”

Arthur tenses.

“I’ll do it lightly,” Travis says. “Even if it lands, it won’t hurt.” He pauses. “Still okay?”

He swallows. “Yes.”

Travis’s fist jabs out. Arthur dances backwards, narrowly avoiding it.

Good reflexes, Travis thinks. And he’s light on his feet. Like a cat. Not surprising, maybe. Arthur did a lot of dancing, as a clown. Spinning that sign, moving in time to the music. He’s in tune with his own body, which is important. His main problem—even more than his physical weakness and inexperience—is his tendency to hesitate. To pull back at the last second.

That’s also not surprising. Arthur’s spent a lifetime facing impossible odds and learning that the best way to survive was to submit. To curl up, like a possum playing dead, and hope that his attackers got bored with hitting him.

As a helpless little boy, maybe that was the only way he _could_ survive. But those lessons are working against him, now. His nerves and muscles have to learn new habits.

“Come at me again,” Travis says.

They fall into a rhythm. Darting in, then back. Arthur manages to land a few decent hits on him. He’s breathing faster now, fists raised, face flushed, eyes bright and alert and wide open. It’s a little distracting. Travis didn’t really expect to get turned on by this. But it’s like watching Arthur dance. He moves like a candle flame. All that brilliant, burning energy inside him spilling out…

“You said your dad taught you how to do this?” Arthur asks.

“Yeah. I had bully problems at school. He wanted me to be able to protect myself. He was kinda rough. Knocked me around until I was dizzy.”

“Is that…normal?” A pause. “I never had a dad. I don’t know how it usually is.”

Travis shrugs. “Normal is whatever you’re used to. It was normal for me.” 

“You don’t talk much about it,” Arthur says. “Your childhood, I mean.”

“Not much to say. It wasn’t the best, but it wasn’t the worst, either. Not like anything you went through.”

He feels Arthur’s gaze on him.

Travis clears his throat. “Again,” he says.

Arthur’s fist shoots out, hitting Travis in the sternum. He stumbles back a little. “Whoa. Felt that one.” He rubs the spot.

Arthur’s eyes widen. His body automatically falls into a submissive posture, shoulders drawn in, hands folded in front of him, head tipped down. “I’m sorry. D-did I—”

“You did good. Don’t apologize.” Travis claps a hand on his shoulder and squeezes. “You’re stronger than you think.”

Arthur blushes.

Travis’s arm drops. “Keep going.”

Arthur keeps throwing punches at him, and Travis brings his arms up to block them.

“Good,” he says. “Another.”

_Thud._

“Another.”

Arthur’s breathing quickens again, and a flush rises into his cheeks once more. He keeps going, faster and faster.

Arthur lurches forward, and muscle memory kicks in; Travis grabs his arm and yanks it behind his back. It catches Arthur off guard. He freezes.

Travis drags him into a bear hug, bringing Arthur’s back flush against his chest. Travis’s grip tightens, pinning Arthur’s arms to his sides.

Travis lowers his head, lips brushing against Arthur’s ear, breath gusting hot and fast against his neck. “Never let ‘em get a grip on you,” he whispers.

Arthur stares straight ahead, panting. He squirms a little, then goes still in Travis’s arms.

Travis should probably let go, now. But his arms remain tightly around Arthur, caging him. He feels Arthur’s chest expand with each breath. Feels his heart pound. He glances down and sees an erection tenting the front of Arthur’s jeans. 

“Travis…” Arthur’s voice comes out faint and breathless.

“I just wanna hold you like this,” he murmurs. “Just for a minute.” 

Arthur remains still in his arms.

“You can say the code-word. Anytime.”

Arthur gives a little nod, but says nothing.

Travis kisses the side of his neck, where his pulse drums visibly beneath the surface. A shiver runs through Arthur’s body, and his eyes slip shut. 

Travis’s arms remain wrapped tightly around him. Immobilizing him. He trails kisses along the tender, vulnerable hollow between Arthur’s neck and shoulder. He encounters a little white line. A long-healed wound. “There’s a scar here,” he murmurs, lips moving against Arthur’s skin. “Right here. What’s it from?”

“I don’t know. I have a lot of scars. I probably did it myself.”

Travis’s lips press against the spot. Arthur moans, low in his throat. He starts squirming again in Travis’s arms, his ass rubbing up against the hard bulge in his jeans. Travis groans softly.

Arthur’s cock is still hard. Despite the looseness of his pants, Travis can see it straining against the denim.

Travis lightly bites the edge of his ear, tugging a little. Arthur’s ass keeps moving, pressing against him.

_I could cum just like this,_ Travis thinks. Just holding Arthur tight. Feeling his little movements. Listening to the quiver in his breathing. Arthur’s body is so thin. So fragile. An overwhelming wave of tenderness and protectiveness wells up in him, but there’s an undercurrent of something darker—a hunger.

He bites Arthur’s ear a little harder.

They could do it right here, on the gray dingy carpet of this motel room. Fast and rough. They wouldn’t even have to bother getting undressed. He could just yank down his own jeans and Arthur’s. Grab some lube, slick himself and bury himself in the snug tunnel of Arthur’s body, feel him bucking and arching up beneath him…

He releases his ear and whispers into it, slowly and deliberately: “I want to fuck you right now.”

Arthur’s muscles go rigid.

He doesn’t say _Carnival_. But Travis feels a shift. Arthur is still, his eyes wide open. He’s trembling a little. But so is Travis. 

The physical signs of fear and arousal are so similar, sometimes. One blurs into the other.

Travis loosens his grip. Still holding him, but gently enough that he could slip out if he wanted. With one hand, he pets Arthur’s hair. “You okay?”

“Fine.”

“You’re shakin’.”

“It’s okay, Travis. You didn’t hurt me.”

Travis rests his cheek atop Arthur’s head. Kisses his temple. He _wants._ So much it aches. His painfully hard cock throbs against Arthur’s body. But he holds back. There’s something about the restraint itself—the denial—that he enjoys. That sense of being on the edge, tight and straining. Joker once told him he was addicted to self-discipline; he’s not wrong. “What do you need right now?” Travis murmurs.

“Maybe…I could stroke you off, or—”

“I asked what you needed.”

The hesitation is answer enough. Travis releases him. “We should take a shower,” he says. “We both need one.”

Arthur bites his lower lip. He opens his mouth, as if to say something, then closes it.

* * *

In the closet-sized bathroom, an earwig scuttles down the drain in the sink. They strip down. Arthur slides off his briefs. His heart is still beating faster than normal.

They’ve showered together many times. By now, being naked with Travis feels normal. A casual intimacy. Still…there’s always a heightened awareness of his own skin, the pressure of air against it, the ghost of self-consciousness when he bares his rail-thin, scarred, flawed body.

It’s cold; the motel room’s heater doesn’t work very well. Goosebumps break out on his arms and legs. His nipples are stiff and tender. His balls tighten and pull in a little.

Travis pulls the mildewy shower curtain aside. “Ready?”

They step into the stall, and Arthur turns on the water.

The shower is tiny—but then, so was the shower in Travis’s apartment.

Arthur closes his eyes and presses close, resting his cheek against Travis’s chest, over his heart. Warm, rough palms slide over his body. Down the ladder of his ribs. Over his sides, his hip-bones. Arthur’s arms slip around his waist, pulling him closer still. He can feel Travis’s erection pressing against his thigh. The hardness and tightness of Travis’s muscles.

_I’ll never be this strong,_ he thinks. Even if he does start lifting weights, even if he gets better at fighting, it will only get him so far. He’s always been frail. His body will never be a weapon to the same degree that Travis’s is.

Still, if he can get even a little stronger, maybe it can make a difference. Maybe he’ll be able to defend himself from men like the one in the diner.

Travis lathers the soap between his hands and runs them over Arthur’s body. The sensation of those soap-slicked fingers on his skin, the closeness and heat, makes his breathing quicken. His cock stirs. Not hardening again—not yet—but plumping up a little.

“I’ve missed this,” Arthur whispers. “I know it’s only been a few days, but—”

“Yeah. I’ve missed it too.”

He takes the soap from Travis, lathers up his own hands, and starts to wash him.

They touch each other. Gently, slowly exploring, as though feeling each other’s bodies for the first time. When Arthur’s hand grazes Travis’s hard cock, his breathing grows a little heavier.

But Travis just drops a soft kiss on top of his head. “I wanna wash your hair,” he says. “I haven’t done that for a while.”

“Um. I guess I do need it.”

“I just like doing it.”

“Do they even have shampoo here?”

“I saw one of those little bottles on the counter. Hang on…” He reaches through the shower curtain, dripping water on the floor, and fumbles around until he finds the bottle. Then he squirts some onto Arthur’s hair and works it in.

Arthur melts.

Sometimes, he thinks there’s nothing in the world better than a scalp massage. He moans helplessly, eyes closed. When he opens them, Travis is watching him with a wide smile. “Well, don’t you look pleased,” Arthur says. His voice comes out breathless and a bit Southern.

“I enjoy this.” His thumbs rub behind Arthur’s ears, as though he’s a cat. “You make these little porn noises the whole time.”

“Mm… _oh…_ hnn…”

“Like that.”

“Oh, _Travis…_ oh god…don’t stop, please…”

He laughs, low and soft. “Now you’re doin’ it on purpose.”

“Mm-hmm.”

“Bet you love gettin’ haircuts.”

“I always cut it myself.” He would cut Penny’s hair for her, too. To save money. Hiring someone else to do it was a luxury.

Maybe that’s why he enjoys it so much now. The feeling of being cared for.

He leans against Travis and lets the world fade away. One warm, strong arm remains wrapped around his waist. Fingers rub his scalp. Travis’s heart beats against his cheek. 

This is what he lives for. These moments. 

“I love you,” Arthur whispers. “So much.”

Travis’s arms tighten around him. Holding him close. Safe. “Love you too.”

Arthur lets the warm water pour over his head, rinsing away the suds. He rests his head against Travis’s chest. “Could you…” He stops, biting his lower lip.

Travis’s palm glides down the inward arch of Arthur’s spine. Two fingers slip between Arthur’s buttocks and graze the opening there. The lightest touch. Arthur lets out a small, choked hiccup. The ring of muscle spasms, drawing inward. His cock grows a little firmer.

Travis keeps stroking. Not penetrating, but teasing and circling. Pressing.

Are they going to do this here? Now?

_Could be fun, couldn’t it? Fucking in this cramped little motel room shower—his body pressing yours against the wall, skin sliding against slippery, wet skin—_

Travis presses a little harder. Arthur feels himself loosening a little, muscles shifting and opening. The very tip of Travis’s finger enters him. His awareness contracts to that point. There’s a slow, steady throb from within his balls, an ache of pressure building.

Travis withdraws, then slides back in, a little deeper. Still teasing. Testing. Like a swimmer cautiously dipping his toes into the pool to gauge the temperature. Playing with him.

The throb from inside his balls seems to creep up and root itself deeper in his body. He squirms, breath quickening, aware of that spot inside him, the tender place. He wants pressure against it. He closes his eyes and imagines Travis sliding into him, Travis’s cock stimulating his own cock from the inside, sending those ripples of dark pleasure through his nerves and bones. He wants Travis to slip under his skin, caress his organs with tender, knowing fingers. Trace patterns on the soft, pink sponges of his lungs. Find his heart and squeeze it until he squirms and gasps. He wants his spine stroked, his brain fondled, a warm slippery tongue sliding over and into its folds, probing at the sensitive spots, bathing the scar there…

_Oh, you are a filthy thing, aren’t you?_ The internal voice sounds smug. Pleased. _You want it so deep. You want him in your subconscious, in your soul. You can’t get it deep enough._

He groans, low in his throat.

Yes, he wants that. He wants to be disassembled, laid bare.

In and out, the finger moves, so frustratingly _gentle,_ just barely touching the place where he needs it the most. Every time Travis grazes it, ripples of rainbow color move across the backs of his eyeballs.

Inside his skull, he hears the whine and buzz of fluorescent lights. He sees the sparkle of a silver grill on bared, grinning teeth. His muscles lock tight again. 

Travis pulls out. His hand slides away from his opening, back up his spine.

_Don’t stop,_ a part of Arthur wants to say—but he can’t quite say it.

One hand drifts up, cups the back of Travis’s neck. His fingers rub in slow circles over the tender, vulnerable skin of his nape. He leans up, kisses his throat. Then Travis’s mouth is on his.

Arthur starts to reach for Travis’s cock, but Travis grips his wrist and pins it against the wall. “No.” His heavy breathing echoes in Arthur’s ear.

He’s so hard. It would only take a minute or two, to bring him off. But Travis holds his wrists pinned against the tiles a moment longer. Then one hand moves down to encircle Arthur’s cock with one soap-slicked hand. He gives it a few firm, gentle strokes, root to tip. Slow, at first. Then faster.

Arthur pushes into his hand, hips rocking back and forth. Arthur reaches for Travis’s cock again, and again, Travis pins his wrists to the wall. A strange, dark fire burns in his eyes. “No.”

Arthur licks his lips. “So bossy,” he murmurs. “You want to touch me everywhere, but you won’t let me touch you.”

“Later.” He goes back to stroking Arthur’s cock.

Arthur squirms. “Inside me.” He doesn’t make a decision to say the words—they just slip out of him. “Please.”

Two fingers press into him and scissor open, stretching. Working him. There’s a faint flare of pain. But in his current state, the pain feels good. Like little firecrackers dancing along his nerves. He pushes down, groaning. “Deeper. Harder.”

He thrusts. Arthur’s hips jerk.

“Right there,” Travis rasps into his ear. “I feel it.”

Arthur melts, shivering, against the wall. Travis works him with a focused intensity, his hands practiced and firm. There’s something almost clinical about it, almost mechanical—except his eyes are dark and hot, heavy-lidded, smoky, as he draws slow, shuddering breaths in through his parted lips.

Arthur bites the inside of his cheek. He’s so _close._ But he can’t quite get there. The water has grown lukewarm. He becomes conscious of a discomfort in his lower back, over-strained muscles. The need starts to bleed over into frustration, edging on desperation. Stupid medications, stupid side-effects, stupid body. “Travis, I—I don’t know if I _can_ —”

“No rush.”

“The water is getting cold.”

“Doesn’t matter. Relax.”

He tries to relax. To focus. His throat tightens. A whimper squeezes through.

_Let me. Become me._

His breathing grows heavier. Does he dare? It won’t be like the last time, he thinks. It won’t be that…intense. He can go under just a little. Open himself just a little. He’s done that before. 

He feels the shift. He pushes into Travis's hand, his movements becoming easier, more fluid. There, he thinks. Yes, there. He gives himself over. Lets the melting sweetness envelope him like a shadowy mouth.

In a flash he’s standing in the bathroom of the diner, fingers curled around the hilt of a steak knife, laughter straining inside his ribcage, fear dancing at the base of his skull. A strangled sound escapes him.

Travis leans down and kisses his eyelid. A shower of golden sparks erupts, like a firework inside his head, scattering the memory. _Oh…_

“You like that?” Travis murmurs.

“Mm…” 

Travis kisses his other eyelid. There’s another burst of golden sparks. It’s almost too intense. Electricity coils at the base of his spine. His eyeball rolls beneath Travis’s lips. He’s breathing harder, faster. So close. Yet the goal-posts keep receding. He strains, cock swollen-tight and sore from stimulation.

_Almost…please…just a little…_

“Let go,” Travis murmurs against his twitching eyelid. “It’s okay. Just let go.”

Arthur's mind softens. Opens. The world dissolves. He’s back in the diner-bathroom again. The blond man grins at him, teeth sparkling. This time, Arthur doesn’t hold back. He plunges the knife into the man’s eye. He feels it go in up to the hilt. Soft, hot flesh yielding to cold metal. A thrill of power, of joy, of _release._ A dark lightning bolt rips through his body.

He looks down, panting. The drain is partly clogged, and an inch or two of water has accumulated around their feet and spilled through the shower curtain onto the bathroom floor. A pearly string of jizz floats atop the water, over the drain.

* * *

They towel themselves off. Arthur can’t quite bring himself to meet Travis’s eyes.

He knows it’s irrational. But when they make love like that—when Arthur is in the throes of pleasure, his barriers lowered—it always feels as though Travis can hear his thoughts and see the images in his head.

As he rubs his hair dry, he senses the weight of Travis’s gaze against his back.

“Arthur. What’s wrong?”

He gulps. Lowers his head. “I thought about something…bad. When I…”

“It’s okay.”

“You don’t even know what it is.”

“Doesn’t matter.” Warm hands settle on his shoulders and rub. “You don’t have to explain.”

A little of the tension ebbs out of him.

He glances at Travis’s cock, which is still half-erect. He swallows. Wets his lips.

Arthur opens his suitcase and rummages through it until he finds a bathrobe. It was Penny’s, though Arthur wore it sometimes, too. It’s fuzzy and pink, with a pattern of tiny red flowers, and not at all fashionable. Arthur shrugs into it. It’s soft against his skin.

He sits on the edge of the bed, glances up at Travis through his lashes, and bites his lower lip. He fiddles with the sash. Takes a breath.

_It feels nice, doesn’t it? When you stop putting boundaries around yourself?_

He stares into space.

Travis hovers nearby, in the bathroom door, a towel around his waist. And Arthur wonders again if he somehow knows. If the curtains parted at the moment of orgasm, allowing him a glimpse into the private chamber of Arthur’s skull. The thought that Travis might have somehow seen that forbidden fantasy just thrills him more, and the thrill just makes him feel sicker.

Because Arthur still _wants_ goodness. He wants healing. He wants to make love in simple and normal ways.

_That’s your whole problem, Arthur. It isn’t that you’re broken. Or that you’re weak. The problem is that you’re still trying so very hard to be_ good _. When will you stop mutilating your own mind, trying to prune it into a shape others find more pleasing? When are you going to learn that “normal” doesn’t work for you? For either one of you?_

_Just do whatever feels good, then? That’s the answer? That feels too easy.  
_

A soft sigh echoes through the corridors of his brain. _Even now, you don’t trust me?_

_It’s not the time._

_When will it be the time, then?_

_Just let me be,_ Arthur says wearily.

_You need me. I thought we agreed on that._

_I thought we also agreed that you aren’t real and that I’m talking to myself right now._

_That just proves my point._ You _wanted to stick a knife in someone, Arthur. And you’re the one who’s frustrated because you can’t protect yourself. Do you see the contradiction there? When you say you’re afraid of giving me control, what you’re actually afraid of is yourself._

“I don’t _want—”_ he realizes he’s talking out loud and stops. Lets out a breath. “Sorry.” He rubs his fingers against his temple.

Travis touches the back of his hand. “Him?” he asks quietly.

_Just let me talk to him._

_What do you want to say? Let_ me _say it._

No response. Of course—it doesn’t work that way. There _is_ something he needs to say, but he doesn’t know what it is. He won’t know until he shuts down his inhibitions. He’s hiding it from himself. It must be awful, whatever it is.

But he can’t just keep hiding and repressing. The two halves of his mind have come to a truce. He has to honor it.

“I want to go under,” Arthur says.

Travis stands, still naked, the towel draped around his shoulders. “We don’t have to do anything else tonight, you know. I’m actually pretty tuckered out. Just watchin' TV for a little while and falling asleep next to you sounds good.”

A flush rises into Arthur’s cheeks. “It’s not about that.”

Travis studies his expression. He slowly sits down next to him. “Is this about what happened in the restaurant?”

Arthur tenses. “Sort of. I don’t know how to explain.” He twists the sash of the robe around his index finger. “Before we left Gotham…I felt like I was getting better at it. Controlling it. Going back and forth on my own.”

“Seemed that way.”

Arthur’s spent so much of his life being afraid of his own mind. Not knowing how to deal with his memories, with the forces that lurk in the depths of his consciousness. He thinks about sitting in the empty parking lot with Travis. Travis showing him the break and gas pedals. How to shift gears.

Arthur’s mind is like a car that he’s just starting to learn how to drive.

Travis links his fingers with Arthur’s. “Maybe we should wait ‘til we get to wherever we’re going.”

“I don’t think I should wait.”

There's a pause...then Travis nods. “How do you want to do it?”

He keeps fiddling with the sash of the robe. One hand drifts up. He touches his lower lip. Slowly runs a finger over it. His gaze falls on the half-open suitcase near his feet.

When he’s Joker, he feels more like himself, in makeup. There’s still some left, from his old job. 

“Give me a few minutes.”


	3. Chapter 3

Travis sits on the edge of the bed, dressed in a plaid shirt and jeans, his hair still damp from the shower. Arthur’s been in the bathroom for about ten minutes, but it feels like much longer.

It’s not that Travis is afraid of Joker. Or at least, it’s not that simple. Joker is just Arthur in an altered state. Travis knows that—knows how his lover’s mind changes, when he’s under. Fear and inhibitions dialed down, sex-drive and aggression dialed up. 

Because of that, Joker is unpredictable. Capable of violence and destruction in a way that Arthur—with his innate gentleness—usually isn’t. It would be naïve to pretend there’s no danger. The danger is part of what makes it exciting.

But that does mean he can’t let down his guard, when Joker is at the wheel.

The bathroom door creaks open. Travis stands up quickly, back straight, snapping to attention.

He’s in full makeup. White face. Blue diamonds. Red smile. And he’s wearing the outfit he wore at Pogo’s. The long-sleeved white shirt and red vest.

“Hey,” Travis says. His voice comes out a little hoarse.

He can’t quite tell if he’s looking at Arthur or Joker. Sometimes it’s not clear-cut. They blur into each other. 

“You look good,” Travis says.

“Thank you.” Joker—Arthur?—glances down at his outfit, smooths his shirt self-consciously. “I wanted to get a little dressed up.”

Travis approaches. Slowly, tentatively. He touches one white cheek. Traces the crisply painted corner of his smile with a thumb. His lips always look fuller, when he’s wearing the makeup. The paint emphasizes their shape. 

“Travis,” he says. “Look in my eyes.”

He does.

“Who am I right now? Can you see?”

He looks for a moment longer. “Arthur. You’re Arthur.” A pause. “Am I right?”

“I think so. Sometimes I’m not sure.”

“You’re on the edge. But yeah.”

“How can you tell? What changes, when I’m…him?”

“Your voice gets higher and sharper. Brighter. Your pulse gets faster. I can see it in your throat. You smile more, and show more teeth when you do. You move different. Slinkier, kind of. You hold your eyes open wider. The green in them comes out more.”

“You’ve been paying attention.”

“I’m a little obsessive. Not sure if you’ve noticed.”

Arthur lets out a short gust of laughter. “Mm.” He studies his shoes. “I tried. Going under, I mean. I don’t know what’s wrong. Last time, I was able to do it just putting on makeup.”

Travis’s hands slide down Arthur’s sides, to his hips. “I can help you. If you want.”

Arthur’s breathing quickens a little.

Travis remembers the last time he brought Arthur under. The impact of his palm cracking against Arthur’s ass. The way his body arched up, the way his eyes misted over and then lit up as the shift happened inside him—

Would that be a good idea, right now?

“I could just talk to you,” Travis says. “Like I used to, on the phone.”

“I remember.” He reaches out, toys with the top button of Travis’s shirt. The tip of his tongue emerges, dampening his lower lip. Pink velvet against red satin. “I liked talking to you, like that. I like your voice.” He stops. The thick curtains of his lashes lower, hiding his eyes. He rolls the edge of the button along his thumb.

Travis watches, very conscious of the thudding of his own heart.

“I was thinking, earlier today,” Arthur says, his gaze still lowered. “About the first time I wore those stockings for you.”

“Yeah?” he whispers hoarsely.

“I was so nervous that you wouldn’t like them. That I would look stupid. I knew you wouldn’t make fun of me. I trusted you not to do that. But still…” He stops. Those red lips part. A soft breath slides out. “I’ve spent so much of my life feeling stupid.”

“You got nothin’ to be embarrassed about. I’ll keep saying that until you believe it.” He touches those ruby lips again. Traces their shape, calloused fingertips scraping lightly over soft flesh slick with greasepaint.

Arthur closes his eyes. His pulse quickens, fluttering visibly in his throat. His lips have always been so sensitive. Sometime, Travis thinks, he ought to spend a while just focusing on Arthur’s lips—touching them, nibbling them, finding different ways to stimulate them as Arthur writhes on the bed. Every part of his body is worth hours of attention and devotion. He is a new land, a wilderness to explore. But not to conquer, no. To worship. To lose himself in.

“You’re too good for me, you know,” Travis says. 

Arthur swallows, his gaze still downcast. He shakes his head, silent. 

“I’m serious. You’re out of my league. I think I must be the luckiest guy in the world.”

Arthur looks up at last, eyes a little damp, and smiles, though there’s something pained in the expression. He touches a finger to the hollow between Travis’s collarbones and retreats behind his breathy Southern accent: “Sweet-talker. I bet you say that to all the clowns.”

“You know you’re the only one for me. Sometimes I can hardly believe that you’re mine.” He leans down. His lips graze the pulse in Arthur’s neck, wander up to his ear. “I still can’t figure out what a classy, gorgeous doll like you wants with a bum like me.”

Arthur shivers a little, leaning against him, hiding his face in the hollow between Travis’s neck and shoulder. Travis feels the flick of long lashes against his skin. “You’re not a bum, Travis,” he whispers. “And I’m not much of a doll.”

“Does it bother you? Bein’ called that?”

Arthur shakes his head. “I like it. You know I do.” He swallows. His fingers are still toying absently with the button on Travis’s shirt. “Does that seem strange?”

“No.”

“I feel like it’s strange, sometimes.”

Travis waits, his breath stirring the hair atop Arthur’s head.

“I’ve never been very good at it,” Arthur whispers. “Being a man.”

Travis’s first impulse is to reassure him that he’s fine at it. But he waits. Listening.

“I remember having thoughts, sometimes…that maybe I should’ve been a girl. Maybe that would’ve been better. But I don’t know. I don’t think I would’ve been very good at that, either. I’m just…confused, I guess. About a lot of things. I don’t know where I fit.”

Travis cups the inward arch of Arthur’s spine. “We got plenty of time to figure it out. Don’t matter to me, though, either way. You’re you. That’s all I need.”

He rests his forehead against Travis’s shoulder, breathing softly. His long, skinny arms slip around Travis’s waist, drawing him closer.

He clings so tight. So hungry. His hand presses against Travis’s back. Every time they hold each other, every time he looks into Arthur’s eyes, it drives home the sense that Arthur is, fundamentally, a creature of love. His deepest desire is to give and receive it. As long as he has a reason to hold on—a lifeline to cling to—the goodness in him will win out. Travis believes that. He feels it.

Because of that—because of that faith—Travis can accept all his darkness and rage, and see the beauty in it. It’s all part of who Arthur is, and the dark and light can’t be untangled.

He strokes those brown curls. “You here?”

“I’m here,” Arthur whispers.

“You still want to go there?”

He nods. His hand drifts back to Travis’s chest and resumes absently toying with a button on his shirt. ““I think—” his voice flutters a little. “I think I’m going to need you to…do what you did before.”

Travis’s already rapid pulse speeds. “Spank you, you mean.”

He nods. “Once should be enough. I'm close.”

“Yeah,” he whispers huskily. “Okay.”

“But do it hard.”

“Sure.” He feels a little dizzy. “You ready?”

A small nod.

“Bend over. Hands on the bed.”

There’s a flicker of hunger in Arthur’s expression. And something else. Fear?

Slowly, he turns away from Travis, bends over the end of the bed, and places his hands atop the comforter.

Travis’s hands shake slightly as he reaches around and undoes the buckle of Arthur’s belt. His pants slip down a little.

Travis stares.

Instead of his usual baggy briefs, Arthur’s wearing black, silky panties. _Tight_ panties. They hug his skinny ass like a glove, cupping his balls. 

“Arthur.” His voice cracks a little. “When did you get these?”

“I bought them at a truck-stop convenience store,” Arthur says, “while you were filling up on gas. They had some lingerie and fancy underwear. Next to the lube. I…thought I would surprise you.” He peeks over one shoulder. “You like them?”

“Yeah,” he whispers hoarsely. He rests a hand on the left cheek of Arthur’s ass and rubs in a slow circle. The panties are as soft and silky as they look. “Yeah, I do.” He can’t stop staring. Taking in the way the fabric shines and reflects the light. The way it clings. 

He’s rock-hard, straining and throbbing in his jeans.

Arthur arches his ass up a little. “Go on.” He braces himself, arms straight on the bed. “Do it.”

“Okay.” But he doesn’t move.

“Well?”

“Sorry. I just…” He feels warmth rising up his neck, into his face. God, he wants to fuck Arthur so bad right now. But the heat of lust is mixed with an almost unbearable ache of tenderness and…something almost like reverence.

Arthur bought these wanting to surprise him. Before he met Arthur, no one ever did anything like that for him.

He’s a little overwhelmed. He feels like he did back in school, as a kid, on the few occasions the girl he was obsessed with actually spoke to him: his head would go blank, his tongue would tie itself in a knot, and he’d just stand there staring, hypnotized. 

“What’s wrong?” A hint of uncertainty creeps into Arthur’s voice.

Travis opens his mouth to respond. He feels like an idiot. It takes him a few seconds to find words, and all he can say is, “You’re so damn pretty.”

Arthur lets out a small hiccupping sound. His gaze drops. The paint covers his face, masking his blush, but his ears turn bright red. He goes into a wobbly Southern accent, trying to sound haughty and not quite succeeding: “Well, are you going to spank me, or stand there admiring the view all night?”

“It’s a nice view.”

He arches higher. His pants slide down a little further, bunching around his knees, exposing the lacy tops of the stockings. He’s wearing those, too, under the pants. He spreads his legs a little more, and a hot, hungry pulse of lust shoots through Travis’s groin.

“You’re all talk,” Arthur says, his voice sliding a little more firmly into that breathy, high-pitched, haughty tone.

“You think so?”

He licks his lips, head tilted to peer at Travis over his shoulder. “You act tough, but all it takes is a pair of stockings and silk panties and you just stand there like a blushing schoolboy—”

His body moves on its own. His hand whips out and smacks, hard, against Arthur’s skinny ass. _Crack._ Like a gun going off.

Arthur’s entire body lurches forward from the impact. He lets out a strangled bleat. His knees give out, and he flops down onto the bed, legs spread, pants pooled around his knees. The cords in his neck strain against his skin. His mouth is open, gasping.

Breathing hard, Travis hooks a finger under the edge of the panties and tugs them aside. He takes a moment to admire the bright, stinging red mark standing out on the pale skin. His gaze moves, lingering on his skinny thigh, the dusting of dark hair there.

There’s a tiny, round white scar—a cigarette burn?—close to the tender place where the rougher flesh of his scrotum joins his inner thigh. Must’ve hurt. Travis has burned himself before, holding his hand over the gas flame of the stove, but he’s never done it _there._ He wonders how long the scar's been there. It doesn't look new. Maybe he's just never noticed it. It's hidden, tucked away.

He slides his finger out from under the cloth, letting the panties snap back into place. “How’s that?”

A shudder runs through Arthur’s body, and he moans, rubbing up against the bed. He’s drooling, a glistening string of saliva running from the corner of his mouth to the comforter. His eyes disappear back into his head—for a moment, all Travis can see between those fluttering lashes is white, like blank screens—then his irises roll back into view. A tear—tinged with blue paint—slips down the side of his nose.

A faint chill of unease settles over the heat of lust. “Arthur?”

A giggle slithers out. A smile pulls at his lips. “What do you think?”

“Joker.”

With a kick, Joker shucks off his pants the rest of the way and stretches out on the bed, on his back, folding his hands together behind his head. His cock juts up through the panties. The sheer fabric of the stockings clings to his skinny legs. “I was right,” he says. “Once was all it took. Though that was quite a slap. It still burns. I can feel that spot pulsing.” He closes his eyes, as if savoring the sensation. “You were admiring that scar, weren’t you?”

“I, uh. I noticed it.”

“I remember that night. The smell of burning hair. I thought about putting the lit cigarette against my balls, but I wasn’t quite brave enough. So I just got as close as I could.”

Slowly, Travis sits on the edge of the bed. “Was this before I met you? Or after?”

“Before.”

So, it's been there all along. Travis thought he knew every scar, but he keeps discovering new ones.

He places a hand on Joker’s leg, rubs his palm over the stocking, feeling the rough band of lace at the top. His hand slides up to one knobby knee. “How you feelin’ right now?”

“Good.” He studies Travis’s face with those big, bright eyes. “Very good.” The tip of that pink tongue emerges again, wetting his lower lip. He rises off the bed.

When he’s Arthur, he always stands up a little stiffly, like his joints hurt. As Joker, every movement has a fluid, feline quality, all slinky limbs and flexible spine. His body seems to bend in ways that a human body shouldn’t. He rolls his head and shoulders and there’s a click in his upper back, like he’s popping extra bones into place.

“Ahh.” He sighs. “That’s better.” He pulls a cigarette from the package he left on the nightstand and lights it. He takes a slow drag, one stocking-clad foot half-lifted off the floor. Then he sits on the edge of the bed again, crossing his legs.

It’s a strange combination—the shirt and vest on top, lace, nylon and silk panties below. But somehow it works. 

He sucks in a mouthful of smoke and blows it out. Lazily, he watches it drift through the air, then contemplates the red smudges on the end of the cigarette. “When my mother wore lipstick, it was always red,” he says. “She used to smoke, when she was younger. She’d leave them smoldering in the ashtray, the ends red.”

He takes another drag.

“I feel like some music,” Joker remarks. “I wish we had a record player. Is there a radio? I’m in the mood for some disco.”

“Didn’t take you for a disco fan.”

“Why not? It’s made for dancing, isn’t it? The beat seeps under your skin, into your bones, and moves you to itself. It takes over. If you let it.”

Travis thinks about that night when Arthur went missing. Travis came home to his apartment and found him there, on the edge. How they danced, even as Arthur’s mind crumbled to pieces. That pained, wild-edged smile as Arthur begged Travis to kill him.

This isn’t like that. Arthur’s been taking his meds. They still haven’t figured out what they’re going to do once the pills run out, but they have a little time. He’s stable, right now.

But Arthur dances, always, on the edge. His life is a balancing act. A tightrope walk.

“Maybe we should just talk,” Travis says. “You wanted to talk. Didn’t you?”

“I guess I did, didn’t I?” He examines the short, blunt nails of his left hand, running his thumb over them.

“What did you want to talk about?”

“What do _you_ think?” He brings the cigarette to his lips again.

Travis hesitates. “That guy in the diner?”

“Oh, _him_? He was nothing. You defeated him with a single look.” Joker smirks. “I like that, you know. How easily you take control of a situation. I could see the fury in your eyes, but it was so—contained. You just stood there, letting your power fill the room.” He bats his eyelashes a few times and takes another drag. “My hero.”

Travis looks away.

Joker’s voice softens. “I’m not making fun of you, Travis. I wouldn’t do that.”

“I know. But I’m not…what you said. I’m not…” He stares down at his feet, his throat suddenly stiff. It's that word. Makes him think about the past.

“Just enjoy it, Travis. Enjoy being the hero. You won’t be struck down by lightning if you allow yourself to feel good once in a while. I promise.”

Joker sees too much of him, sometimes. Maybe Arthur does, too. Maybe Arthur just doesn’t let on how much he sees.

“Things get outta control,” Travis says. “When I let my ego get too big. People get hurt.”

“What? Are you talking about New York? That wasn’t a problem of _ego,_ love. You were having a mental breakdown.”

Travis doesn’t reply. New York is part of it. But it’s more than that, bigger than that. It’s a flaw rooted in the depths of his being, one he has to be constantly on guard against. Whatever Joker says. The breakdown he had back then, the insomnia and isolation and pill-popping...it wasn't the root cause. It just revealed the problems that were already there, like a low tide exposing the garbage and dead fish strewn on the shore.

“Travis.” Joker sets the cigarette aside, in the ashtray. “Relax.”He drapes one arm around Travis’s shoulders, pulling him closer, until Travis can feel Joker’s breath against his lips. “You’re wound up so tight, it’s a wonder you can breathe.” 

"Yeah, I know. I'm a real square."

Joker rests his forehead against Travis’s. "I can help you loosen up."

He’s so close. Warm. Inviting.

Travis gulps. Slowly, he raises a hand to cup Joker’s face.

He wants to grab Joker and pin him to the bed. Rip off those panties and bury himself in that tight, sweet warmth. Fuck him like an animal. And he knows Joker can see that desire.

“Go on,” Joker says. “What are you waiting for?”

But Arthur is still there, beneath the surface, peeking out at him through those feral, catlike green eyes. His trauma and pain is all still there, buried deeper in his mind. His heightened arousal—that bright, manic shine—just masks the effects temporarily. Like a drug. Once he shifts back into Arthur-mode, he feels everything.

Joker-mode doesn’t mean anything goes. As tempting as it is to think of it that way. 

“Are we gonna play this game?” Travis asks gently. “Where you try to test me? To see how hard you can push?” His other hand comes up, framing Joker’s face between his palms. “You won’t break my control. I’m strong enough.”

“Is that what you think this is about?”

He strokes Joker’s face. Touches his thumb to the blue diamond under his right eye. “Isn’t it?” His voice is a hoarse whisper. “Deep down, you’re still scared. That I’m going to hurt you. That I’ll do something that will scar you. You’re still afraid to believe in this, so you keep pushing, seein’ how far you can take it. Looking for the breaking point.”

“You think I would be that cruel to you?” He smiles, a little sadly. “I’m not testing you, Travis. I’m trying to _help_ you.” Joker tugs on the collar of Travis’s shirt with his free hand, loosening it. He undoes the first button, then the second.

“You think I need help?” Travis asks.

“Yes. I do.”

Travis’s gaze keeps straying down to those shiny black panties. The way they hug and cling. It’s hard to focus.

It’s not fair, he thinks. He has no defense against those. Joker has to know that.

“What for?” he asks, his voice low and husky. “What do you think I need?”

Joker’s fingers brush against his chest. “Will you let me show you?”

He swallows. “Arthur…”

“Joker.” Joker places a hand on his chest and pushes. “Lie down. On your back.”

Travis hesitates.

“I won’t hurt you,” Joker says. “But if you want to stop, you can say the word.”

He lowers himself to the bed. Joker climbs on top of him, straddling Travis’s hips, ass rubbing up against his cock.

"Whoa."

Joker undoes the first few buttons of his own shirt, showing a hint of sweat-damp chest. He touches Travis’s hair, his cheek. “You have a beautiful face, Travis. Have I ever told you that? You’re very handsome.”

“I, uh…I guess so.”

He’s always thought of himself as a pretty normal-looking guy. He keeps in shape and all that, sure. It’s the rest of him—everything on the inside—that’s always been the problem.

He feels uncertain. Off-balance. 

Joker wiggles his ass again, silk rubbing against denim, and a groan escapes Travis’s throat. “It’s okay, Travis,” he says. “We’re alone together. We’re free. We can do whatever we want. This world belongs to us.” He leans down and presses his lips to Travis’s.

He tenses, briefly—then the tension flows out of him, and he kisses back. Slowly, at first. Softly. Then harder. His hands drift up to frame Joker’s face between them.

The kiss is wet. Messy. Eager. It’s been a while since they’ve kissed like _this—_ tongues tangled, mouths melting together. He runs his hands over Joker’s mussed-up, curly hair, over the bony little wings of his shoulders, sheathed in the fabric of the suit.

God, he’s gorgeous. He tastes so good…so clean, so sweet…

Joker pulls back, panting, his red-painted smile smudged around the edges, eyes sparkling. “I want to try something.” He reaches back and tugs off his stockings, one by one. “Put your hands together. Over your chest.”

This time, Travis obeys automatically. He watches as Joker winds the black nylon around and around his wrists, then secures them with a knot.

He tugs tentatively at the restraints. “You know I could break out of these.”

“I know.”

Travis flexes his fingers, then curls them into fists. Even though the restraints are flimsy, there’s something about having his hands bound that makes him feel a little weird.

When he watched bondage porn, or fantasized about that stuff, Travis always saw himself as the one in control. The one tightening the ropes, securing the gag. When he thought about doing that stuff with Arthur, he imagined Arthur at his mercy. There’s something within Arthur that craves the experience of being bound and overpowered. And there is something within Travis that responds instinctively to that need. To give Arthur that—to bring him right to the edge, to that place he needs to be, and hold him there—that’s what Travis is built for.

It always made him feel a little guilty, being that way. But maybe that was part of what made it exciting. Being bound, himself…

It’s not that he doesn’t like it. He’s still rock-hard…though that probably has more to do with the fact that Joker’s straddling him, groin pressed snugly up against his. He just doesn’t know how to play this part of the game.

Travis looks uncertainly up at him.

“I’m just trying it,” Joker says. “Just to see if I like how you look, with your wrists bound.” He plucks the cigarette from the ashtray, takes another drag, and sets it back down.

“Do you?”

“I do. How does it feel?”

“I dunno. It feels like stockings tied around my wrists.” He tugs at them again, experimentally. But gently. He doesn’t want to rip them. He loves these stockings, after all.

Warm fingers touch the underside of his chin, lifting it. “You know,” Joker says, “even after all this time, you’re still such a mystery to me, in so many ways.”

“I’m not that complicated.”

He smiles. “You’re more complicated than you think.” Joker traces the line of his jaw. He turns his back to Travis, still straddling his hips, and starts to move. His ass glides back and forth, then in slow circles, rubbing over Travis’s cock.

He watches it happen. “Oh,” he says, breathless. “Wow.”

Travis got a lap dance in a strip club, once. He kept trying to talk to the girl as she ground against him, asking her questions about herself, which seemed to annoy her. Eventually he shut up and just let her wiggle against him until the time limit was up. He hastily finished himself off in a bathroom stall afterward, feeling vaguely ashamed.

This…

“You’re— _damn_ …you’re good at that…” He puffs for breath, bound hands clutched against his chest.

Joker pauses to reach down and unbutton Travis’s jeans and tug down the waistband of his boxers. His cock slides out, swollen and flushed, skin shiny and tight. “I bet I could make you cum,” Joker says, “without even using my hands or mouth.” He pushes down again, trapping Travis's dick between them, pressed against silk and skin.

Travis’s hips arch up, his cock sliding along the crease of Joker’s skinny ass. He wants to hold him. But his wrists are still bound, and Joker seems to like having him this way. He keeps his arms folded against his chest, out of the way.

“The nice thing about being helpless,” Joker says, “is that it frees you to just feel.”

Soft, slick black fabric slides and slides against hot, hard flesh. Travis’s head falls back.

“You don't have to make any choices,” Joker says. “You don't have to think. You don’t have to keep checking the weather in my eyes to make sure I’m not panicking.” He grinds down. “Oh, I know you enjoy that—taking care of me. Being careful with me. You need it, being needed. And I need you to need it. But sometimes you need to be taken care of, too—don’t you?” He smiles over one shoulder. “Sometimes, I like seeing you let go. Seeing you powerless.”

He opens his mouth, but no words come out. His cock feels like it’s going to burst. It aches, pulses, as Joker writhes against him. As he brings Travis closer and closer to the edge, he keeps reaching over for his cigarette. Taking slow, lazy puffs.

He’s enjoying this. Smiling that coy, knowing smile, showing a hint of white teeth between his lips. Toying with him. Rotating his ass against Travis’s straining groin.

But even now, there’s a gentleness in his eyes. A warmth.

“My soldier,” he says.

Travis groans, soft, deep in his throat.

“Say my name.”

“Joker,” he whispers.

“Louder.”

“Joker. Shit. _Joker…_ I’m gonna… _”_

Joker presses down against him, hard, and Travis’s hips jerk up one last time. The cords in his neck stand out. He gasps, every muscle going rigid. Cum spurts onto the silky black panties, painting them.

He flops back down to the bed, shirt drenched with sweat, chest rising and falling. His head is spinning.

Carefully, Joker unties the stockings from his wrists. A warm hand caresses Travis’s sweat-damp face.

“That was…God.”

Joker leans in and kisses him. Thoroughly. He smiles a little, his thumb rubbing at Travis’s lips. “You’ve got my makeup all over your face.”

Travis watches, floating in a warm haze, as Joker slides off the panties—now dripping and heavy with cum—and sets them carefully aside, on the nightstand, next to the ashtray. He sits on the bed, next to Travis.

“Do something for me,” Joker says. 

“Anything,” he whispers huskily.

“Put your head in my lap.”

He does. Joker strokes his hair in slow, soft movements.

It’s…nice. Soothing. He closes his eyes. He could drift off to sleep like this.

“You love me,” Joker says. “Even my brokenness.”

Travis starts to say _you're not broken_ , then stops. It doesn't really seem like the time to argue about words. He's not sure what it even means to be broken, or to be whole. He himself can't remember a time when he felt unbroken. There was no single point when it happened. Sometimes it seems that he was born into this world knowing the language of pain, feeling it in his bones. But it's taken him thirty-one years to learn how to start putting that unspoken language into words that other people can understand. “Yeah," he whispers.

“I want to understand you. I want to know your brokenness, too. I want to feel the jagged edges of your mind and see how they line up against mine.” Those warm fingers graze his jaw. Trail along the edge. Down his throat, to his collarbones. “You carry so much pain inside you.”

Travis opens his mouth to reply, but his throat locks tight.

Joker strokes his hair. “Things got so twisted up, didn’t they? You were wandering in the dark for so long. No one to guide you. It wasn’t easy, was it? At some point, you started to hate yourself. Someone hurt you very deeply. Or maybe it was the whole world.”

Travis curls up, drawing his knees toward his chest, head still resting in Joker’s lap.

“You don’t have to tell me. You don’t have to say anything.” Joker’s hand rests atop his head. “Just know that I see you, my love. Your devotion. Your strength. I see how much you’re hurting, and how hard you try. How much you love me. The way you love is beautiful, Travis.”

He blinks rapidly, staring into space. A lump fills his throat. He hides his face against Joker’s leg. “I..." He stops. Struggling to make his voice work. "I done so many bad things.”

“I know. But that doesn’t matter, now.”

“I’m still scared. That I’m gonna fuck this up. And that I—” his voice breaks. "That I don't deserve this."

"Don't deserve what? Happiness? Being loved? You don't have to earn it. That's not how it works." The soft lamplight reflects off his hair, off his painted cheek. He seems to glow. “It’s all right, Travis. You don’t have to keep punishing yourself. You can start to heal.”

He fights to hold the tears at bay. Then it occurs to him that he doesn’t have to fight. There’s no reason to hold back. It’s just habit.

He cries—quietly, almost silently—shoulders shaking, tears dampening Joker's leg as those warm, knowing fingers stroke his hair.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings in the end-notes (since I don't wanna spoil anything, but do feel this requires additional warnings).

Travis rises slowly from a fog of dreams. He blinks his eyes open. They’re still raw and sore from tears. His nose is kinda stuffy, like he’s got a cold, and there’s a dull band of pressure around his sinuses and forehead that reminds him of a hangover. 

He’s still not used to it. Crying. The physical after-effects of it. His whole head feels sort of clogged and cottony. He shuts his eyes and rubs the lids.

Dawn light, weak as watered-down tea, creeps in through the blinds. The heater rattles and hums.

“You’re awake,” Arthur says.

Travis looks over at him. He’s still in his paint, laying on his side, gazing steadily at Travis. “Yeah.” _Did he sleep at all?_

“How are you feeling?” Arthur—it _is_ Arthur now—asks him.

Travis sniffles and wipes at his eyes again, brushing the sleep-crust from the corners. He contemplates the question. Despite the discomfort in his head, he feels lighter, cleaner, than he has for some time. As though something rotten has been scraped out from inside his chest. As though one of the aching knots in his brain has been massaged back into a straight line. Is this healing?

“I feel like I could use some coffee,” he says.

“I guess it is time, isn’t it?”

Their checkout is at seven AM. He could’ve opted for noon, but that would’ve cost more, and they don’t have money to spare. How long did he doze? Not long. But he’s surprising awake and alert. Clear-headed.

Slowly, he sits up and runs a hand through his messy hair. “We can find a diner. I think I saw a sign for one, on the way here. About ten miles ahead.”

“Can we watch the sunrise, first?”

“Sure.” He’s looking forward to it. 

He changes into some fresh clothes—then pauses.

Arthur sits up in bed, propped up on one arm, still in his rumpled suit, naked from the waist down.

“It felt good,” Travis says. “What you did last night. You were right. I needed it.”

“I know,” Arthur says quietly. He smiles and brushes a hand over his cheek. “I should probably wash my face.”

* * *

There’s a coffeemaker in the lobby of the motel, and a basket of cellophane-wrapped, chocolate frosted donuts with sprinkles.

Travis fills a pair of Styrofoam cups and hands one to Arthur. The coffee is cheap and has been sitting out for a while—it has that burned, bottom-of-the-pot taste—but it’s hot, and it’s caffeine. He grabs a couple of donuts, too. It’ll tide them over.

It’s still mostly dark outside. A crisp layer of fresh snow blankets the parking lot, crunching beneath their shoes as they walk to the cab, parked at the far end of the lot.

They get into the cab. “Here.” Travis hands one of the donuts to Arthur. “You barely got to eat anything last night.”

Arthur unwraps it and takes a small, delicate bite. He chews slowly, almost cautiously.

“It’s probably not too good,” Travis says. “We’ll get something better soon.”

“It’s fine.” He washes the bite down with a swig of coffee. “It’ll help just to have something in my stomach.”

Travis pulls out of the lot. They drive west as the candle-glow of dawn brightens in the rearview mirror.

“Oh look,” Arthur says. “Cows.”

Sure enough, there are a dozen or so of them—some black and white, some solid brown, ambling in a pasture and swishing their tails. One raises its head and looks straight at them with a sort of sad dignity as they pass. 

Arthur swallows another mouthful of donut. “I’m surprised they’re still out, in this weather. Don’t they get cold?”

“Probably. Guess they can’t stay cooped up indoors all winter, though.” 

A few minutes of silence pass. Travis thinks about turning on the radio, but he doesn’t. The stuffiness has cleared out of his head, though his eyeballs still have a raw, scraped-over feeling. It’s a weird thing, crying—little glands that squirt out saltwater when you’re feeling sad. Like God was drunk when he came up with that one. He glances in the rearview mirror; he can still see a faint, lingering pinkness in the whites of his eyes. Irritated blood vessels. Crying, he thinks, is a form of self-harm. Minor, but still. Something about it has always felt self-indulgent to him.

The physicality of it is reassuring, though. Pain is harder to bear when it’s abstract. When it’s private. Pain wants to be known. If it remains locked away behind the skull-wall, it will start harming the body in an attempt to make itself known. It leaks out.

The endless dark days in New York drift through his head like a remembered nightmare.

He never cried, in New York. The one time he tried to talk about what he was going through, with Wizard, all that came out of his mouth were fragments of nonsense, like pieces of broken glass. He remembers clearly the baffled, uneasy look on Wizard’s face. The shame he felt was like a divine punishment for his momentary weakness. After that he didn’t try talking to anyone. He shut down. Retreated.

For so long, he existed in that state. Maybe that was the only way to survive. Living each day like a machine. The same performed motions. Feeling things again…it’s like a numb leg coming back to life, pins and needles tingling as the blood starts flowing once again. It’s not always comfortable.

But it’s happening. It’s been happening for a while, maybe ever since he met Arthur. New life and sensation creeps deeper and deeper, toward the frozen core of his being. Something small and soft, encased in cold iron, stirs in the center of his chest.

He glances at Arthur. At his profile, the well-known and well-loved line of his brow, his sharp nose, his chin.

_You have my soul,_ he thinks. _Whatever remains of it._

“More cows,” Arthur says. “There are a lot of them out here. Oh look. That one has a baby. A calf, I mean.”

“Yeah. I see it.”

Travis scans their surroundings, looking or a good place to park. A private place. He wants to hold Arthur’s hand while they watch the sunrise.

He turns onto a narrow, gravel-covered side road and drives until he finds a secluded spot behind a patch of trees, sheltered from the view of passing cars on the highway. “Here,” Travis says.

They park by the side of the road, spread a blanket out on the grass and sit side by side, shoulders touching, as the sun’s glow bleeds through the clouds.

Arthur’s breaths steam in the cold air as he huddles inside his coat. A few traces of white greasepaint still linger on his jaw. Travis leans over and wipes off a bit with his thumb, feeling the prickle of stubble. “You got some paint here.”

Arthur rubs at his face with a sleeve. “I always miss some.”

The sun stains the clouds pink, then orange. Travis feels frost-rigid grass through the blanket's thin fabric, poking his palm like tiny blades.

“Are we still in Nebraska?” Arthur asks.

“I think we’re right at the edge of Colorado.”

“It’s hard to tell one state from another. I always imagined each one would be very different from the next. But I guess that’s kind of silly. I mean, the borders are just lines on a map. But driving through all these fields and towns…it kind of blurs together.”

“Lotta cornfields,” he agrees.

“There are mountains in Colorado, aren’t there?”

“Sure. The Rockies. Maybe we’ll see ‘em later.”

Arthur picks absently at a loose thread on the sleeve of his brown winter coat, which looks like a heavier version of his usual brown jacket. “It’s…strange. Gotham always felt like the whole world, to me. Like I was stuck in a snow globe. You need money to travel. And I never had money. I didn’t think I would ever leave.” The sunlight gleams on his brown curls, illuminates the weathered plane of his cheek. It catches in his eyelashes, making them less black, more of a dusty brown. He starts to reach for the pack of cigarettes in his pocket, then stops. He folds his arms over his knees, shivering.

Travis reaches over and puts an arm around his shoulders, hugging him. “You cold? Wanna get back in the cab?”

“No. This is nice.”

Travis nods and pulls him a little closer. He’s all bones and angles inside his heavy brown coat. Travis rubs his arms through the fabric, trying to warm him up. Arthur snuggles a little closer. He smells clean. 

Vivid pinks and purples stain the sky as the sun floats higher, an orange balloon. Arthur breathes softly against his neck.

“I wanna do something for you,” Travis says.

“Like what?”

“I dunno. But you helped me last night. I wanna give you something. Is there anything you want? Anywhere you wanna go?"

“I don’t need anything. I just want to be with you.”

“You sure?”

Arthur’s teeth catch on his lower lip. He opens his mouth...then shakes his head.

Travis frowns a little, but says nothing.

They sit in silence for a few minutes longer. Just when Travis is about to suggest getting back in the cab, Arthur says, “You told me about a fantasy of yours, once.”

“Which one?”

“On the phone,” Arthur says. “You remember. Don’t you?”

He remembers. It happened after their first time, but before their second—during what Travis thinks of as their courtship. The two of them were talking on the phone almost every night, then. Sometimes those conversations turned intimate. And during one of those particular conversations, Travis described a daydream he’d had about tying Arthur to a chair and touching him. Making him cum.

“Yeah?”

“I don't know. Just thinking.”

Travis's breathing speeds up a little.

He clearly recalls that fantasy—how it played out in his own head. Arthur waking up bound hand and foot to a chair in Travis's apartment. Confused. Disoriented. Asking questions. Struggling at first, then slowly giving in as Travis touched him. _Just relax, Arthur…just feel…_

And then he _told_ Arthur about it. And it freaked him out. At least, it seemed to. Not like Travis can blame him for being uneasy.

It’s harder, now, to deny that what he’d described that night was basically a rape fantasy. Harder, too, to feel like that was all just harmless fun and games. Even if it was just a daydream.

“Seems a little different, now,” he mutters.

“Why?”

He rubs his forehead. “Because I know what happened to you. I saw that file. From Arkham. Those pictures, and…the bruises…” His voice cracks a little. 

“Oh. That.” Arthur slowly pulls a cigarette from the pack in his coat pocket. He lights it. The flame wavers and dances. Then the lighter snaps shut, snuffing it out. “I’m not that little boy anymore. Even if I still have the scars.” He smiles, just a tightening of his lips.

There’s a bit of Joker in his voice. That lilt. Each day, the two of them seem to blur into each other more and more. 

“I know,” Travis says.

But the words—the images—have branded themselves into Travis’s brain. _Tied to a radiator. Severe trauma to his head._ He remembers the burns. The rope-marks on Arthur’s wrists.

He wonders if Arthur was tied up when he was beaten. When he was molested.

Did those ghosts stir, when Travis bound Arthur’s wrists with a belt? Even if Arthur wanted it...did the past whisper?

Memories are landmines. Travis knows that all too well. Sometimes you step on the wrong spot and they explode in your face, all at once.

But sometimes it’s not that dramatic. Sometimes memories are more like a poisonous gas, creeping in. Something slips under your skin, nudges a cluster of brain cells, wakes a ghost in the dark cave beneath the conscious mind. You don’t even know it’s happening. You feel a shadow of discomfort but you don’t know why. You’re afraid to look. It builds inside you, grows like cancer, like a tumor, until you’re choking on it.

“Sometimes when I move too fast, when I push a little too hard, I still feel you freeze up,” he says. “I see that little flicker of fear in your eyes.”

Arthur pulls away, drawing in on himself. Pulling his knees closer to his chest. “I can’t help it. I’m sorry. I know that ruins it for you, when I do that.”

“No. No, Arthur, that’s not—” Travis sighs. He rubs one hand slowly over the other. “It’s…not really about you. It’s me. The person I am…the things I want, the things I would _do_. There are times when I want to just…” He struggles, grasping for words. “There’s bad stuff in me, Arthur. It’s not all of me. But it’s there.”

“How long are you going to cling to guilt over what happened in New York?" There's a sharp edge to his voice, now.

Travis's jaw tightens. “It's not about guilt. And it's not just about New York, either. It's about recognizing. Taking responsibility. I'm the kinda dog that needs to be muzzled. Because once I really lose control, I can't stop myself."

Arthur watches him silently. His pulse drums visibly in his throat. The blood pushes, thrusts against the thin wall of his carotid artery, against the fragile, weathered skin spread over it. He takes a drag, lets the smoke stream out between his pursed lips.

Slowly, Arthur rolls up his sleeve with his free hand, exposing the burn marks on his wrist and arm. Some old and healed, some still relatively fresh. “One of my mother’s boyfriends,” he says. “He used to burn me. As a punishment.”

“I’m—”

“No. Don’t say you’re sorry. Let me finish.” He brushes his fingertips over the scars. “I don’t remember which one it was. I don’t think it was the same one who raped me. That came later.”

The way he says that—so casually—sends a jolt through Travis’s system. And he has another of those moments of disorientation. It doesn’t sound like Arthur, but it doesn’t really sound like Joker, either.

“They all sort of blur together,” Arthur says. “And there were moments, after he burned me…it was almost a relief. Because it was a simple, understandable sort of pain. And then I’d watch the burns heal. Day by day. I started to burn myself almost as soon as I started smoking.” He flexes his fingers, curls them into a fist. “What do you think that says? About me?”

“I dunno.”

Arthur rolls his sleeve back up, covering the marks. Raises the cigarette to his lips again. “Do you think I’m sick?” After a few seconds he adds, “You don’t have to answer that.”

Travis feels an uncomfortable echo from the past. But of course, this is different. Arthur is talking about hurting himself, not someone else. “I mean, it’s probably not healthy,” he says. “But lots of things aren’t. Alcohol. Sugar. Even coffee’s not that good for you.”

“Cigarettes,” Arthur adds.

“Yeah.”

“You’ve never smoked. Have you?”

“No,” Travis says. “When I was a kid, my dad caught me lighting up behind the garage, once. He was pissed. Made me smoke an entire pack. I got sick, threw up. Nearly passed out.”

“That’s awful.”

“Maybe. But I never touched a cigarette after that. Got plenty of other bad habits, though. Everyone does. Hurting yourself—it’s not something to be ashamed of. But…”

“But it would be better if I could stop,” Arthur finishes.

“Wouldn’t it?”

Arthur hugs his knees, staring straight ahead. “I don’t know. Probably. I haven’t done it since you came back to me, in Gotham. But I’ll probably do it again someday. Old habits are hard to break.”

_Tell me about it._ “We’ll work on that. We got plenty of time.”

“Mm.”

“Once we get to California, once I save up enough money, we can find you a new therapist. A good one. If you want that, I mean.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?” Travis asks.

“Have you ever thought about therapy?”

He shrugs. “I’d be bad at it. Wouldn’t know what to say. The few times I did talk to shrinks, after the war, it wasn’t great. I’d get out of a session and go right to a bar and pound down shots until I couldn’t think or feel anymore. But...who knows. It might be different now." He looks away. "If you want me to try it, I will. I know I got a lot of shit to work on, too. And I want to do right by you.”

“I was just curious. It's up to you. I’m not even sure if _I_ want to go back to it.”

“It seemed like it helped you. At least a little. Before...you know.”

Arthur doesn’t respond immediately.

“Arthur?”

“I feel like I’ve always been walking up those stairs.” His voice is soft. Detached. “Toward some version of myself that isn’t broken. One step after another after another after another. Like I’m chasing a ghost. And it never really ends, because that other self is always one step ahead. I don’t know what being cured would even mean for me.”

“I dunno if anyone ever gets cured. It’s more like…like having a car, I guess. You keep changing the oil and filling up on gas. Things wear out, things break, and you get it fixed until the next thing breaks, and if you’re lucky that’s enough to keep it running.”

“Is that what it is being a person? Just keeping the engine running?”

“Maybe that’s not the right way to put it. But I guess I do feel like an engine sometimes.”

Arthur plucks a blade of dead winter grass and twirls it slowly between his thumb and forefinger. "I don't feel that way."

There's something he needs, Travis thinks. Something he's trying to ask for. He can't ask directly. Or won't, maybe.

But Travis can feel the shape of it. The outline. Arthur has been talking around it. Bringing up that fantasy Travis told him about. Showing him the burn scars.

He thinks about the scar he saw last night. The little round mark, tucked away between Arthur’s inner thigh and the edge of his balls. A very private scar.

Travis breathes in slowly through his nose. Exhales. Rubs a shaky hand over his face. He feels like he’s come to an intersection and has to decide whether to keep going straight ahead, down the main road, or make a turn onto a narrow one-way street. Straight ahead is the dream of a normal life with Arthur. California. A warm paradise, a new place, where he can be a better, cleaner version of himself. They can start all over again, together.

He wants that life. A house. A dog. A yard with a palm tree.

He wants to watch TV with him after work, kiss him goodnight, and drift off in his arms. He wants to watch Arthur heal. To see him getting a little better every day. Smiling more. Feeling more comfortable in his own skin.

He wants to see Arthur slowly opening up, like a flower. Making friends. Finding a community of people who can accept and love him as he is. He wants to bring him his medication, lay it out for him on a tray with breakfast and hot chocolate. He wants to surprise him with daffodils, go out to dinner and movies with him. Go to a fair with him. To hear him laugh, _really_ laugh. He wants to give this sweet, good man all the things he’s never had, to shower him with love and tenderness until his heart is so full it could burst. He wants to love Arthur until they’re both old and gray. Until their clocks stop.

Arthur will probably die before him. He knows that. A vision flashes through Travis’s head: he sees himself at age sixty, looking down at a frailer, withered, silver-haired Arthur in a coffin, wearing his red suit. Those beautiful eyes closed forever. Those graceful hands cold and folded over his chest, clasping a wand with a spray of colorful make-believe flowers. He sees the coffin closing, lowering into the earth, soil and earthworms swallowing it. He sees himself staring down the barrel of another decade or two without his lover and best friend. Alone.

_It will be a sunny day,_ he thinks, _when they bury him. Sunny, but very cold._ He has no idea where this thought comes from or why he feels so sure of it. He rubs at his throat, which suddenly hurts.

“Travis?”

“Nothin’. Just my crazy brain playin’ tricks on me again.”

It will happen. One way or another. Hell, they’ll be lucky if they live to old age.

But if they’re careful, they can have that. So many days ahead to love and be loved. A future.

But that idea—of a normal life with someone he loves—feels so fragile, at times. Like a soap bubble, shimmering and beautiful, that could burst if he pokes it too hard. There are so many ways it could go wrong. Both of them are walking a razor-thin edge of sanity. They both have so much darkness. So much pain.

“It’s all right,” Arthur says quietly. He gives Travis a strained smile. “We don’t have to talk about this now. We can just keep watching the sunrise. It’s pretty. Isn’t it?”

Travis stares at the horizon.

“Travis?”

“Can I ask you somethin’, Arthur?”

“Yes?”

“You ever—” his voice wavers. He swallows. “You ever jerked off after burning yourself?”

He lowers his head, peeking up at Travis through the dense forest of his lashes. “You already know the answer.”

Heat climbs up his neck, into his ears. “I mean, I know that—that you like pain. That you get off on it, sometimes. I just didn’t know if the cigarette thing was…like that.”

“Not always. But it can be.”

He remembers their first time. Joker’s voice, taunting him. _Make it hurt._

_Are you going to pretend that it’ll be all picket fences and lemon-frosted cupcakes? That you—that_ both _of you—won’t want something else? Something darker?_ The voice he hears in his head, then, sounds a lot like Joker’s. _Oh, you can have your happy ending. But don’t deny who you are. More importantly—don’t deny who_ I _am._

The tip of Travis’s tongue creeps out, wets his lower lip.

_You know what he needs. You know what he’s asking. Are you going to turn your eyes away?_

He comes to a decision. Makes the turn.

“Do me a favor,” he says. “Pass me that cigarette.”

Arthur’s expression goes still. Unreadable. He passes the cigarette to Travis, who rolls it between his fingers. 

“Lay down,” he says. “On your back.”

Arthur’s breathing quickens.

He expects questions. But Arthur obeys without a word, slowly stretching out on the blanket. Travis straddles him, reaches down, and opens his coat with one hand. Arthur’s chest heaves as Travis undoes the first few buttons of his shirt, exposing his chest. He studies it for a moment—the sprinkle of dark hairs, the prominent ribs with their hills and shadowed valleys, the small, round scars visible here and there. He brushes a thumb over Arthur’s right nipple. It’s stiff and tight from the cold.

Their breath forms little clouds. Goosebumps ripple across Arthur’s skin.

This isn’t the time or place. There’s snow on the ground, and nothing but a thin blanket between them and the frost-bitten grass.

But Travis doesn’t feel the cold. His pulse thuds in his throat, in the hollows of his wrists.

“You’ve fantasized, haven’t you?” he asks. “About me doin’ this.”

Arthur swallows. A tiny nod.

Travis contemplates his chest.

He himself has never really gotten off on having his nipples touched or sucked—a girl tried doing it to him once and he flinched away, which seemed to offend her. But Arthur…he seems to like having them touched, sometimes. Having them pinched and squeezed.

He rolls the cigarette again, slowly, between his fingers. 

Not on the nipple itself, he thinks. A burn might damage the delicate flesh, leave the nerve-endings permanently desensitized. He doesn’t want that.

The areola, maybe. He presses his fingertip against the edge of that small, slightly-darker circle of skin. He rubs slowly, tracing it, feeling the flesh bunch and pucker into small, tight folds.

Arthur is breathing rapidly and unsteadily. His eyes are wide, the pupils enormous.

For a long moment, they just look at each other. They are suspended together in a bubble of silence and stillness. A bird trills in the distance. The sunrise smears honey-colored light across the sky and across the fields around them. Travis hears the distant roar of a car driving past, but they’re sheltered from view, hidden by curtains of tall winter-brown grass and skeletal trees. The air is like glass, so rigid and cold that it could shatter. Arthur’s lips are parted slightly.

Travis waits for some sign to turn back. Waits for Arthur to pull away, or say something. He doesn’t.

Travis presses the end of the lit cigarette against the edge of his areola. Arthur lets out a choked sound. His head snaps back, the cords in his neck standing out. He writhes, back arching, one hand clawing at the blanket, as Travis grinds the cigarette into him. He holds it there, pressing, until a strangled sob escapes Arthur’s throat.

Travis pulls his hand back, panting, and stares at the red welt standing out against Arthur’s skin.

Arthur shivers beneath him, eyes glazed. “Uh— _fuck—”_ he gulps and blinks, a rapid fluttering. He bleats out a short, harsh sound, somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “That hurt.”

Travis can feel the bulge of Arthur’s erection pressing up against his thigh. “I’ll bet,” he says.

Slowly—dreamily—Arthur (Joker?) reaches up and trails a finger along Travis’s jaw. “I used to wonder what spot you would choose,” he whispers, “if you ever did this to me. That’s the one I always imagined. That, or the inside of my thigh.”

Travis's pulse quickens.

"Getting scared?" Arthur asks.

The glow’s gone out of the cigarette. Travis sets it slowly aside on the grass. He slides his hands under Arthur’s open shirt, cradling his ribcage. His thumb finds the fresh burn mark and presses down on it. 

Arthur whines, his body arching up. His expression goes soft and lost. Helpless. “Travis…”

“I'm going to fuck you. Here. On the ground.”

“Yes,” he whispers. “Yes.”

Travis’s ragged breathing echoes through the silence as he fumbles with his belt, yanking his pants down. His mind drifts to the lube in the suitcase, in the trunk. He pushes the thought away.

Travis yanks down Arthur’s jeans.

_Fuck,_ it’s freezing. He can feel bits of gravel digging into his knees through the blanket. The discomfort blasts the foggy heat from his brain. Gives him a moment of sanity.

What the hell is he doing?

They’re outside, in the open. Even if this is a little-used road, there’s a chance someone could drive past and see them. They could get thrown into fucking _jail_ if someone catches them like this.

“Hey—uh—”

Arthur lurches up, grabs the lapels of his coat and yanks him down. His mouth crashes against Travis’s, tongue pushing past his teeth. Travis groans and falls against him.

“Do it.” Arthur squeezes the words between clenched, chattering teeth.

He pulls down Arthur’s baggy white briefs. He's hard, despite the cold. They're both shivering.

Travis’s fingers slide between the skinny cheeks of Arthur’s ass and find the small, tight ring of muscle there. He jabs two fingers into that heat, and Arthur squeaks. Another sharp little jab. No lube, just dry friction. In and out, rough and fast, as Arthur gasps and squirms beneath him.

Travis’s fingers slide out. Arthur’s eyes are closed, his mouth open.

“Look at me.”

“Travis…”

“Look at me.” 

Arthur’s eyes open. Travis holds them with his own as he moves forward, presses up against Arthur’s opening, and enters him with one hard thrust. Arthur’s head tips back again, mouth open, no sound coming out.

Travis begins to push—slow at first, rocking against his hips, then harder and faster. Too much friction. It hurts, but he doesn't want to stop. He buries his face in the hollow between Arthur’s neck and shoulder and groans.

His body takes over. Instinct grabs him by the stem of his brain and rides him like he’s a bucking horse. It’s almost frightening. He feels his ego dissolving, and there’s nothing but hot flesh hugging his cock and the taste of Arthur’s sweat.

Arthur’s arms wrap around him, tight as a straitjacket, fingers biting into his back. Soft little sounds escape his throat each time Travis hammers into him.

Travis grabs a fistful of his hair and yanks, and Arthur cries out.

“Say you’re mine,” Travis hears himself growl. It doesn’t even sound like his own voice. It’s deeper, rougher. Like he’s possessed by a demon. He jabs into him again. “Say it.”

“I’m yours. I’m yours. I’m yours—”

Travis’s mouth latches onto the burn mark, pulling and sucking the tender flesh up between his teeth. Arthur lets out a thin, creaking whine. His eyes disappear back into his head. A shrill spurt of laughter escapes him, then melts into another moan.

This is too much, Travis thinks. Arthur will break. He has to stop—has to—

But his hips keep rocking. He’s like a windup toy—no choice, no way to halt himself even if he rolls right off the edge of the table. He grabs Arthur’s arms and pins them down, holding him immobile, helpless, as he pumps into him.

Travis cums with a ragged, almost pained shout, the sound of a man who has been shot. He goes limp atop Arthur, panting and shivering, sweat turning cold as soon as it touches the air. His grip loosens. 

There’s a sticky warmth pooling between his stomach and Arthur’s. Arthur came, at some point, and Travis didn’t even notice, he was so wrapped up in his own blind, feverish desire.

They lay there, tangled up in each other’s limbs. The harsh caw of a crow rings out through the stillness. A dog barks, distantly. His mind barely registers these details. The world feels faraway. Unimportant.

He presses his face against Arthur’s chest. His thoughts drift down, settling back into place. “Arthur?” he whispers, breathless.

No reply.

He raises his head and studies Arthur’s expression. His eyes are soft and hazy, heavy-lidded. Drugged. The tip of his tongue pokes out between his teeth.

Travis tugs free of Arthur's body, wincing at the fresh flare of pain. He grabs some tissues from his coat pocket and mops up the cum as best he can. There's a little blood, too, on his cock. He buttons up Arthur’s shirt, and his own. Once his pants are secured, he pulls Arthur into an embrace and squeezes him tight. “I love you.”

“I love you too.” Still, his voice sounds faint. Faraway.

Travis hears the rumble of a car’s engine. It’s not close, but he tenses.

“We should go.”

* * *

They drive in silence for a few minutes. Travis’s head is still spinning.

It all happened so fast.

Arthur leans back in the seat, eyes closed. His face is relaxed, the muscles loose. He’s humming very quietly, almost inaudibly, low in his throat. Like a cat’s purr.

Travis keeps feeling the urge to ask if he’s okay, even though he’s already asked. He keeps opening his mouth and then closing it again.

Arthur’s eyes open. Slowly, he holds out one hand, the fingers spread in front of him. He tilts it back and forth, like a paper plane gliding on the wind.

“Do you like cats or dogs?” Arthur asks.

“Uh?”

“For pets.”

“Oh. Dogs, probably. Haven’t had one since I was a kid though.”

“I’m more of a cat person.”

This is a weird conversation to be having, Travis thinks. Then again, he’s not sure what conversation they _should_ be having, at a moment like this. “They’re not bad. Cats. I had one once. Took in a stray. A lady-cat.”

“What was her name?”

“Cat.”

Arthur chuckles softly. The highway stretches off into the distance. Open fields all around.

“Whatever kinda pet you want is good with me,” Travis says. “Hell, we could have both. A dog and a cat.”

“Both. Both is good.” He starts to light another cigarette, then stops. “I’ve been trying to cut back. It’s hard, though. I’ve tried quitting before and I never last very long. But this time…maybe. I’ll just have to find other ways to relieve stress.” 

Travis’s stomach flips over. It's weird how normal Arthur's voice sounds. It's disconcerting.

He clears his throat. “We, uh. We should clean out that burn. When we get to someplace with a bathroom. I got some first aid stuff in the suitcase.”

He’s conscious of his shirt, stuck to the drying sweat and the residue of cum on his stomach. That’s going to be distracting.

He thinks about Arthur’s body arching beneath him. The moment when the cigarette pressed against his skin, energy shooting through him like an electric charge through a wire.

Travis’s thoughts spin and spin. They won’t settle. 

When he can’t resist anymore, he asks again: “You okay?”

“I feel good,” Arthur replies. "Really good, actually." He brushes a few sweat-damp strands of hair from his face. “What about you?”

“Okay.”

He hesitates. “Travis?” There’s a hint of concern in his voice now. 

“Little shaken up, I guess.”

Silence. Arthur pulls a few strands of hair from his face. “I shouldn’t have—”

“No, it—” he swallows, throat tight. “I wanted to. I liked it. A lot.” That’s why he’s shaken. It makes him wonder just how far he could go. Where the limit is.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

His stomach growls. 

Breakfast, he thinks. They’ll get some breakfast. Now that his lust is sated, he’s more conscious of other needs; right now, his darkest and most powerful earthly desire is for a waffle. After that, he'll be able to think clearly.

“Later,” he says. “But I’m okay.” He squeezes the steering wheel in a death grip. Forces himself to relax.

Arthur looks uncertain. But he nods.

_This could get out of hand,_ Travis thinks.

But then, isn’t that the edge they’ve been walking all along?

“You wanna turn on the radio?” he asks.

“Music sounds good.”

Travis twists the dial. He finds some disco. “Stayin’ Alive.” The beat pulses in the marrow of his bones as they sail down the road. Gradually, he relaxes.

Arthur starts to nod his head in time to the beat. He mouths the lyrics—or maybe he’s singing, but so quietly that his voice is almost lost.

Travis rolls down the window, and a gust of January wind blasts his hair back.

It’s cold. But the sun is shining.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter deals with some pretty dark stuff thematically (references to childhood abuse) and also contains some pretty explicit smut with some more overt sadomasochistic elements. Proceed with caution.


	5. Chapter 5

Arthur’s body arches beneath him as Travis presses the glowing end of a cigarette to his chest.

His eyes roll back in ecstasy, mouth opening, hands clawing at the grass as Travis thrusts into him, deeper and deeper, harder and harder, fucking him the way he’s wanted to fuck him for so long, with wild abandon, without caution or restraint. He’s almost there—almost…

A gun goes off. Blood pools on the ground, soaking into the dark earth, covering Travis’s hands like a pair of shiny, dark red gloves. Arthur is bleeding out, dying in his arms. It’s hot. Ferns rattle around them with the impact of gunfire and explosions.

“Hold on, Arthur…hold on…” He presses a hand against the wound, trying to staunch the flow of blood.

Arthur smiles, blood running from one corner of his mouth, teeth and lips shiny with it. “It’s okay,” he whispers, his voice hoarse and cracked. “It doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re bleeding. Arthur, you’re wounded. Hold still.”

He slides his hands up Travis’s back, into his hair. His bloodstained lips seal themselves against Travis’s. Travis pulls back, gasping.

“What are you—?”

“It’s all right.” Joker sits up, still smiling, guts half-spilled. “Nothing can hurt us now.” He kisses Travis again.

Travis kisses him back. He can’t help it.

* * *

Travis wakes up next to Arthur in a motel room. A clock ticks softly. Pale light filters through the blinds. Moonlight, or the glow of dawn—he can’t quite tell.

Arthur is awake, eyes open, curled semi-fetal beneath the covers. “Hey,” he says softly.

“Hey.”

“You were dreaming. Just now. Weren’t you?”

“Yeah.”

“I was about to wake you up.” His eyes move in little flickers, searching Travis’s face. “What did you see?”

He thinks about saying, _I don’t remember._ But he’s never made a habit of lying to Arthur. He doesn’t intend to start now. “You were dying in my arms.”

Arthur touches his cheek. “I’m not dying,” he says softly. “I’m safe. We both are.”

Travis’s gaze wanders down to Arthur’s chest. To the band-aid covering his burn, which Travis carefully cleaned out and dabbed with alcohol earlier. It’s such a small injury. Barely anything. Arthur’s already covered with burn-marks. What’s one more?

But the fact that he left a mark on Arthur—not a love-bite that will fade in a few days, but a scar that will linger on his skin—still sends a shiver of mingled fascination and fear through him.

He touches a thumb to the edge of the bandage. “How’s it feel?”

“It doesn’t hurt.”

“And…down there? You still sore?”

“Oh yes.”

“That bad?”

“I knew it would hurt. It’s not like before. I wanted the pain.”

It’ll probably be a few days, at least, before they can do anything like that again. Just as well. He’s still reeling from that moment by the roadside.

Dust motes glint in the light filtering between the blinds.

“I like hurting you,” Travis says.

Saying it aloud still feels so foreign. Even though it’s something they’ve both known for a long time.

“I know.” Green eyes gaze steadily into his. 

Travis’s heart is beating harder now. Faster. 

“It frightens you,” Arthur says in that soft, gentle voice. “Doesn’t it?”

He stares at the ceiling. “It’s myself I’m scared of. Not you.”

His lashes lower. “You’re scared of what I might bring out of you.”

“I got some weird ideas in my head.”

Arthur looks at him from the corner of his eye. “Weirder than what we've already done?"

"Maybe."

"Like what?”

Travis imagines parting the cheeks of Arthur’s ass and pressing the muzzle of a .44 Magnum against his opening. He sees that tight ring of muscle blossoming open to accommodate the barrel. He imagines sliding it deeper, until the cold metal presses against Arthur’s prostate. Listening to him moan, feeling him push back against it, watching his hips rotate and grind his hard cock into the bed. Moving the barrel in and out, in and out.

“I would like to fuck you with a revolver,” he says, low and hoarse.

Arthur’s eyes widen a little. “Loaded?”

“Jesus, no.”

He laughs, a short gust of air. “Such a softie.” There’s a dark lilt to his voice. Joker peeking out again.

“Even without that...it’s not something I ought to want.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Slowly, Arthur rolls onto his back. He lights a cigarette and raises it to his lips. His eyes drift out of focus. “I’ve fantasized about you killing me, you know. That night, when you tied me up with duct tape to stop me from hurting myself. When you were gone…I imagined you inside me. Pressing the gun to the back of my head. Pulling the trigger. I came when you blew my brains out.” 

Travis says nothing. His unsteady breathing echoes through the room.

“I’ve thought about it in other ways. Sometimes, during bad nights when I just wanted it all to be over…” A pause. “Should I stop?”

“Keep going.”

“I imagined you cutting my wrists. I thought about bleeding out in your arms as you stroked my hair and told me you loved me. It was nice. Gentle.”

He could never do that. He would sooner kill himself than Arthur.

_Unless…_

If they were cornered, he thinks. If they were going to take Arthur to prison or Arkham, to a life in a cage, a fate that Arthur now considered worse than death—if it was a choice between that or a bullet, maybe. But still. It would kill everything inside him to pull that trigger.

“I don’t really want to die,” Arthur says. “Not now. But still. It’s a comforting thought, sometimes.” He smiles a little. “Death is an escape. It’s always felt seductive. But the idea of killing myself was too lonely. I liked to imagine dying in the arms of someone who loved me, someone who would sort of…help me across that bridge. It’s a fantasy I’ve always had. But my killer never had a face, before you.” His gaze remains loosely fixed on the ceiling. “I like the fact that you’ve killed people. I feel guilty for liking it, because I know that you’re ashamed of your past. And I don’t want you to have to kill anyone else. But still…I look at your hands and think about the things they’ve done and it just makes me want you more. I wonder if I could do those things.”

His voice is soft. Shy. Arthur’s voice. But the way he talks about these things…Arthur would never say those words so easily. If he were to look into those green eyes, maybe he would see Arthur and Joker dancing together there. His two halves, no longer locked in combat, but moving in a perfectly timed waltz.

“I’m scaring you,” Joker—Arthur says, with a sad smile.

“No. You’re not.”

It feels as though they can say anything to each other, in this space. As though they are in a bubble that protects them from the consequence of words. There’s only truth here. Only love. There can be no wrong words, no fear.

He wonders if it will last, or if the spell will break once they get to their destination. Probably. These moments of clarity are so fragile. People always retreat behind their protective walls, sooner or later, as the little hurts of life build up.

But for now…

“I don’t want you to become a killer,” Travis says.

“Would you love me less, if I were?”

“No. But I want to keep you this way. I want to protect you from that.”

“So possessive.”

“I don’t want you to burn yourself, either. I want to be the only one to do that.”

Arthur’s breathing quickens a little. “I’ll—I’ll try.”

Travis gives a small nod.

Arthur keeps staring at the ceiling, the cigarette held loosely between two fingers. "I feel like I ask so much of you. Like I ask you to walk this line, all the time.”

“I need that. You help me focus on what matters. You keep me steady. Without you, I get weak. I get confused. I wander around in circles.”

“I feel like I'm wandering too. I want so many different things. I want to be normal and happy. To have that house with the picket fence. I want to get better. But…I don’t always know what ‘better’ means."

Travis climbs on top of him. He lays there, his chest pressed against Arthur’s chest, their faces close together. His forehead rests against Arthur’s. “We’ll have plenty of time to figure it out. Once we get home.”

“Home?”

“California.”

He feels Arthur’s ribcage expand and contract against his with each breath—the precious life in him. Travis lets the love well up inside him, wash over him. His cock is still hard and aching. The arousal is almost a distraction. He sometimes wishes he could shut it off and just experience the love on its own—that pure, aching tenderness. That desire to protect, to hold. The quiet awe at Arthur’s humanity, his mind and heart.

“Can we go to the beach?” Arthur whispers. “Once we get there.”

“I would like to go to the beach with you.”

“I wonder if the air smells different. I wonder if it smells like oranges. Or like saltwater.”

“I dunno. We’ll find out, I guess.” He looks into Arthur’s eyes. The sunlight from the window hits them at just the right angle, bringing out the green. He can see an amber fleck in the right eye, close to the center. Like a spot of fire burning underwater. His gaze lingers on that bright fleck.

He kisses Arthur. Arthur melts into the kiss, so warm and giving. And for a while longer, the cramped, dirty motel room is a paradise. They are protected, here. The past and the future are just ghosts. This room is the only reality, and the only one they need.

* * *

Mountains loom in the distance, gray, hunched shapes against the horizon, like a row of elephants. The cab flies down the highway, tires devouring miles of pavement.

“How many more states do we have to drive through?” Arthur asks. “Before we get to California.”

“Utah. Then Nevada.”

“What’s in Utah?”

“Deserts, mountains. Mormons.” 

The sky is wide open above them, not a cloud in sight.

Travis thinks about his dream. Arthur bleeding out in his arms.

Is his subconscious trying to warn him to turn back before they cross another line? Should he listen? Or is it just blind fear?

How do they navigate something like this?

Marriage, family, children, a stable and tidy life, a life like the kind on TV—this, he has always understood (even before he met Arthur), is a world closed off to him. At best, he and Arthur can exist on the edges and the spaces between. Like ghosts. The world is not made for them. That vision of _good_ is not made for them. Not just because they’re both men, but because of everything else about them. Maybe that vision of _good_ is a lie to begin with, and no one can really fit into it: some can just pretend better than others. He doesn’t know where to look for guidance. He doesn’t know who to ask. No one has the answers. Priests, doctors, politicians—they all seem like false prophets.

But he doesn’t dare rely on his own clouded heart, either. He has made too many mistakes. His brain is a funhouse mirror, distorting everything it reflects. A cracked telescope lens. Society and conscience, the outer and inner guiding voices, both speak lies and half-truths. Where, then, should he look? God, maybe...but he's so screwed up, he wouldn't trust himself to recognize God if he met Him on the bus.

Wizard’s voice echoes in his head: _I mean, we’re all fucked anyway. More or less._

But a plant can still turn toward the light. Geese still fly toward warmth in the winter. The same instinct guided him and Arthur toward each other.

They can still fuck it up. In so many ways. Nothing is guaranteed. But what they have, what they’ve found—it’s _real._ It is worth fighting to protect. Of that, at least, he feels certain.

Even in the darkness and chaos, they can wake up every morning and keep making the choice to love. To trust and hope. To move forward, one stumbling step at a time. Even if they don't know where they're going.

This is a brief, transitional time. On the road. Limited cash. A space in between spaces. But in another sense, it feels like eternity. In some way, maybe, they have always been driving west.

* * *

California is warm, bright and green: the opposite of Gotham in every way. Palm trees rustle in a salt-scented breeze. It’s January, but the temperature is a pleasant seventy degrees. 

The apartment is tiny. Arthur stands in the empty living room, surveying the four walls and orange shag carpet. There’s a thrift store down the road—they can buy some furniture there. But for now, the place has a naked, fresh look. He wanders from room to room.

The kitchen has a grandma-ish, orange and brown floral pattern. There’s a clown-shaped cookie jar on the counter. The bathroom has a Pepto-Bismol-pink tub and a shower curtain with a pattern of tiny cats wearing tiny human outfits, little frocks and hats and sailor suits, and it’s so ridiculous that he can’t help liking it. He feels a spasm of tenderness toward the tacky curtain, toward the wallpaper, toward the ancient, rust-flecked sink. A cheap rubber duck, the paint of its eyes almost worn off, sits on the rim of the tub. There is love here, he thinks. He touches the edge of the counter.

“What do you think?” Travis asks, hovering behind him. There’s a slight edge of nervousness in his voice. “I know it’s not big, but it’s the best I could do. We can, uh—we can probably change some of this stuff. The wallpaper and all that.”

“It’s perfect.”

A wide smile breaks across Travis’s face. He lowers his gaze, almost shyly.

Arthur wanders into the living room. He touches the lacy curtains, rubbing them between a thumb and forefinger. Something brighter, he thinks—red. Or maybe blue. He stares out at the patch of brilliant sky and the busy street outside. “It’s perfect,” he says again.

Travis approaches and rests a hand on his shoulder. “Welcome home, Arthur."

_Home._

He thinks about the old apartment he shared with Penny. About her remains in the pink marble box, still tucked away in the suitcase. Where is he going to put it? It would feel weird to have it just sitting out on the coffee table, or on a shelf. But sticking it away in the back of a closet doesn’t feel right, either. He tries to push the thought away. But he finds himself preoccupied, thinking and thinking about where he’s going to put the box containing his mother’s ashes. He briefly thinks, _I should just throw it into the ocean,_ and then he feels awful for thinking that. He thinks about Penny—about the way she liked her oatmeal (with a pat of butter and one spoonful of brown sugar) and about the silver hairs twined into her hairbrush, which she always left out on the bathroom counter. He will never see that again. And he realizes that—until that moment—he didn’t truly believe she was dead. He didn’t fully grasp that her face, her hands, her body, everything she ever was, has been reduced to a handful of ash in a box. She has been erased. Mommy is gone. He is an orphan. He knows it’s stupid to think about it that way. He’s a man in his forties, a man with age-lines in his face and a few gray hairs of his own, a man with sore knees and a sore back. But his life as the son of Penny Fleck—the role he has occupied since childhood—is over. Now he is in a strange place on the other side of the country, about to start a life with a man he has known for only a few months—a man he loves more than anything, a man he needs with an intensity and depth that still frightens him, but who has been a part of him for only an eye-blink of time. This could all go horribly wrong. It would be naïve to think otherwise.

Arthur feels himself start to tremble.

A moment ago, he was so happy. Yet now he feels the beginnings of a panic attack welling up inside him, clawing at the edges of his mind. A scream presses against the back of his throat. He chokes it down. 

“Hey…” Travis cups his chin in one palm and lifts it. With his thumb, he brushes moisture from the corner of Arthur’s eye. “You okay?”

He starts to say _yes,_ automatically, then stops. A small, choked laugh escapes him. “I don’t know.”

Travis’s eyes search his. “Scared?”

He laughs again, pulls back, and covers his face with one hand. “I’m sorry,” he whispers. “I know that I should be happy. And I _am._ I am. It’s just…”

“It’s okay. You can be scared.”

“I don’t know who I _am_ here. I’m not…” His voice breaks.

“It’s okay. You don't have to know.”

Arthur lets out another short, bleating laugh. Like a sob. “I _do_ love this place. I don’t want you to think I don’t appreciate it. You worked so hard to give me this. I want to just be happy and excited. I hate that I'm like this.”

Travis’s arms surround him, pulling him close. “You need to cry? You can cry.”

He presses his face against Travis’s soft, brown jacket. Breathes in its familiar, comforting smell. “I t-told myself I wasn’t going to…”

“Just let it happen.”

A low, pained whine escapes Arthur’s throat.

_We’re here,_ Arthur thinks. _We’re here._ Everything feels new and strange. The past is a land he can never return to. Even if he goes back to Gotham someday, it won’t be the same. Because he won’t be the same person.

He waits for the panic attack to come. Waits for the dark shadow to swallow his mind. But it doesn’t happen. The swirling storm inside him quiets. He lets out a few more jagged, hiccupping laughs and swallows too much air, which escapes him in something between a croak and a burp. But that’s all.

“The first few nights might be hard,” he murmurs. “I might have trouble sleeping.”

“I figured.”

“What about you? Are you…”

“It’s different for me. I never really had a home before. I'm not leaving anything behind.”

He says that so casually. But Arthur’s heart constricts in a painful spasm. He closes his eyes. Squeezes Travis tight. 

He finds himself thinking about that morning by the side of the road. The sharp burn of the cigarette against tender, sensitized flesh. Travis fucking him roughly. It hurt at first, and then the pain became a deep, sweet, dark ache in the center of his being. 

He wonders how those feelings fit into this—into their new life in this bright and green place. He thinks about being fucked that way again, in the bedroom of this cozy little apartment with the tiny cats on the shower curtain and the clown cookie jar in the kitchen. He thinks about his confessions in the hotel room, and blood rushes to his face.

How are you supposed to have a normal life with someone, wake up and have breakfast with them, after admitting something like that? _I get off on knowing that you’re a killer, and oh, I fantasize about you killing me too. And sometimes I imagine killing other people._

It’s as though they’re putting together a jigsaw puzzle, the two of them, and that—everything they talked about in that room, and what they did by the roadside—is the last piece. It doesn’t fit into the gap. The edges are wrong.

But he can’t reject that last piece. Even if it would make things more convenient. It’s too much a part of both of them. Maybe it doesn't need to fit. Maybe it can just be there, off to the side.

For a few minutes, they just hold each other there, in the empty living room with its garish seventies wallpaper. Then Arthur pulls back and wipes the back of one hand across his eyes. “I saw a pizza place on the way here,” he says. “It’s just down the street. You want to get some pizza?”

“Sure. We could walk around. See what’s here. There’s a video rental place too. We can pick something up for tonight, if you feel like it.”

“That would be nice.”

Travis takes his hand. They walk out together, into the warm, amber, afternoon sunlight, and Arthur tugs his hand free. As his fingers slip away from Travis’s, he feels a pang in his chest.

Since they arrived here, in this city, he’s seen a few men holding hands. It’s not quite as weird here. Maybe at some point, he’ll be brave enough to hold Travis’s hand while they walk in public together. But not today. They're still adjusting to everything.

In the distance, in a gap between two buildings, he can see the blue expanse of the ocean sparkling.

Another electric jolt of panic goes through him. But it fades. He lets his gaze dart around, taking in everything. Feels the pressure of the street against his shoes with each step. His nostrils twitch, drinking in the new smells; he feels impressions forming in his brain, new pathways opening, and he thinks, _Years from now I will smell this smell and remember our first day in our new home._ He looks at the cupcake-tower in the window of a bakery. The tarnished trombone hanging in the window of an antique store. The glimmer of sunlight on the chrome of a red car shooting past.

There’s a record store, called THE CAROUSEL, with an actual carousel horse in the window, still on its pole. “Can we go in there?” Arthur asks. “Just for a few minutes?”

“Sure.”

They enter. The bell dings overhead. A musty smell hangs in the air. It feels as though he has been here before—like a place from a dream. There is an ancient-looking record playing in the corner, and music swells and warbles from it: _Everything was beautiful at the ballet…_

“Looking for anything?” the man behind the counter says. He’s middle-aged, a bit paunchy, reddish-brown hair tied back in a tail. He’s wearing a faded Pink Floyd shirt.

“Oh…just browsing,” Arthur murmurs.

“We’re new in town,” Travis adds. “Just got here today.”

The man pushes his glasses up the slope of his nose. “Welcome to the neighborhood.”

As Arthur wanders, letting his gaze skim over the album-sleeves, the song twines through his head:

_Up a steep and very narrow stairway…_

* * *

Later, after dinner, they stop at a florist shop. Arthur buys a bouquet of daffodils.

Back at the apartment, he arranges them in a plastic vase and sets it on the coffee table. Already, the place looks a little brighter.

They don’t have a real bed yet, but there’s a thrift store futon set up in the living room. They fold it out and lay down together. Arthur listens to the hum of crickets outside. It’s warmer than he’s used to. Even the air smells different. Their first night in their new home.

The fear starts to creep back over him. It’s vague, formless—a fog. But woven through it are countless smaller, more specific fears.

_You could have a mental breakdown._

_If that happens, it happens._

_Travis could leave you._

_No. He wouldn’t…_

_You can’t know that. It could all fail. It could fall apart._

_What good is thinking about that?_

_He could hurt you. You could hurt him. A bond this deep, this strong…if it goes bad, it will rip you both apart at the core. There would be nothing left._

Travis’s arms slip around him, pulling him closer, until Arthur’s back is against his chest.

Arthur knows that Travis can feel his racing heartbeat, his unsteady breathing. Arthur can hide nothing from him. Travis can look through the back of his skull and see the frightened thoughts scurrying around in his brain like mice. 

He thinks that Travis is about to ask if he wants to talk. Instead, Travis starts to sing, quietly, in his ear: “Fly me to the moon, and let me play among the stars. Let me see what spring is like on Jupiter and Mars. In other words, hold my hand. In other words…darlin’, kiss me…”

Travis is a terrible singer. It’s mostly the same note over and over. Arthur can’t help it; he starts to giggle, surprising himself. Actual laughter.

Travis responds by singing louder. “Fill my heart with song, and let me sing forevermore…”

Arthur struggles to catch his breath. “I—I’m sorry, I—” he breaks off in another gust of laughter.

“That bad?”

“I don’t think you’re going to win any awards.”

“Well, I’m not tryin’ to.” Travis strokes his hair. “You make me want to sing, is all.”

Arthur feels himself smiling. “I didn’t know you liked Frank Sinatra.”

“Is that who it is? I just heard it on the radio. Anyway, I’ll stop.”

“No. Keep going.”

Travis keeps singing, softer: “You are all I long for, all I worship and adore.” Arthur starts singing along with him: “In other words, please be true. In other words, I love you.”

Arthur’s gaze wanders to the daffodils on the coffee table, a spot of brightness in the dark. I’m here, he thinks. We’re here. A part of him will always belong to Gotham, but that just means he carries his home with him wherever he goes. They don't have a TV yet, but they brought their old record player with them, and their music. As long as Arthur has music and cigarettes, he can survive. 

The song from the record store plays again in his head, and he mouths the words along with the silent voices:

_Up a steep and very narrow stairway_

_To the voice like a metronome._

_Up a steep and very narrow stairway_

_It wasn’t paradise_

_It wasn’t paradise_

_It wasn’t paradise_

_But it was home_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So yes, this is the final chapter; I will likely write more in this timeline sooner or later but this was meant as a short road trip story, so their arrival in their new home felt like a good place to end it. Hope you enjoyed. :)


End file.
